


The Six Portraits of the Marquess of Anstruther by Ken Kaneki

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: (the care and burning of vines), Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Post-World War I, Canon-Typical Violence, Class Issues, Falling In Love, Family Dynamics, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Other, Portraits, Power Dynamics, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:39:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 63,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5157296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In December 1918, Ken Kaneki was commissioned by Lord Mirumo Tsukiyama, 7th Duke of Bute, to paint six portraits of his son, Lord Shuu Tsukiyama, then Marquess of Anstruther.</p><p>This was not the first time the artist and his subject had met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. December 1918, Part 1

**Ken Kaneki** (1895-1982)  
_**The Marquess of Anstruther (I)**_ December 1918  


     This portrait of Lord Shuu Tsukiyama, then Marquess of Anstruther, is the first in a series of six by Ken Kaneki, then a recent graduate of Glasgow School of Art. The portrait series was commissioned in November 1918 by the Marquess' father, Lord Mirumo Tsukiyama, 7th Duke of Bute, to celebrate the return of his only son and heir from the First World War. This was Kaneki's first major commission and began his lifelong association with the Tsukiyama family.

    In this immediate post-war portrait started in December 1918, the Marquess is attired in his RAF Captain uniform. As with many of the portraits in this series and characteristic of those painted by Kaneki, the Marquess does not look directly at the viewer. Here, his gaze is downcast and slightly to the right, indicating his discomfort. In his memoirs, Kaneki described the sitting for this first portrait as "nerve-wracking for me, who was intimidated by the magnitude of the commission, and unhappy for the Marquess, who did not wish to be painted."

 

Lance-Corporal Kanae Rosewald, Shuu Tsukiyama's batman during the First World War, used to scream every time they were unceremoniously woken by bombs or the gas whistle.

"Wake the fuck up!" Kanae would roar before punching Tsukiyama awake if he wasn't already. 

He would follow this initial exclamation with a slew of German. Kanae's cursing, despite constantly undermining the admittedly poor effort that the Tsukiyama family had put into disguising Kanae's German origins, served as a highly effective warning to the rest of the camp. Not because anyone thought that Kanae was about to attack them but because Kanae's voice at top volume was both extremely distinctive and extraordinarily loud as to be expected of someone operatically trained. By late October 1917, everyone was more than used to the eccentricities of the even more eccentric Lieutenant Shuu Tsukiyama's batman. 

"You're like our canary in the mine," Yuma joked once after they made a narrow escape of chlorine gas. 

"Canary," Shuu had echoed before bursting into giggles; he was very tired as none of them had slept in over thirty hours, so giggling was tolerated. "It rhymes!"

They probably survived the war as they did due to Kanae's cursing as much as Tsukiyama's tactics. Kanae woke them up. The swearing gave them a sense of normality. The language and the volume gave them something to smile about, which annoyed Kanae until he caught on that it was good for everyone. They had, by November 1918, very little to smile about.

"Oh, sure, we smile in our letters and during visits home," Mairo murmured, ironically the night before the Armistice of Compiègne was signed, "but copping a packet -"

"It doesn't do to say," Kanae muttered; although Shuu was pretending to write a report, he knew they were all glancing at him. "Now where's the damn matchbook?"

By the time Shuu and Kanae finally journey home a month after the end of the war, the Isle of Bute, the seat of the Tsukiyama family, is cold and damp. Then again, all of Britain is cold and damp this year, having skipped spring, summer, and fall and gone straight from one winter to another. There's a distinct tang of absurdity. This is not a new feeling. One could argue quite easily the past four years of war were themselves surreal.

It doesn't mean that Shuu enjoys these thoughts. He doesn't. Shuu shivers in his greatcoat, even under the woolen blanket and in the heated carriage. Next to him, Kanae dozes, mouth open. It's not very dignified, but that makes it comforting. Kanae, since they'd disembarked the ferry at Rothesay, is allowed to sit again at Shuu's side. For the week they were down in London and then on the train up to Edinburgh, they had to sit apart in a mimicry of the stations that they once wore as second skins. The charade of manners might have fallen apart in the trenches, but that is a whole other world. It no longer exists, except as scars in the earth. 

Instead, it is December 1918. Shuu has recently been made Captain down in London, where the top brass are eager to curry favour of Shuu Tsukiyama, Marquess of Anstruther, only son and heir to the Duke of Bute. Shuu is acknowledged, respected, and decorated, if still eccentric. Kanae has also been promoted to Sergeant and is now far too decorated and eccentric to be a batman. These titles and decorations, earned in mud and putrid squalor, mattered for the past four years. The war is over. Mirumo Tsukiyama, Duke of Bute, has summoned his son and heir home. Kanae as well, of course, but one does not summon a servant; they command. Papa wants the whole family home for Hogmanay. 

"It'll be nice," Shuu finds himself mumbling as the carriage rattles on the road. 

It wakes Kanae, who emits a displeased noise. "You mustn't mumble, Master Shuu," he murmurs, a gentle reminder. 

Shuu grimaces. Kanae's right. Mumbling isn't a good habit. Shuu started it because it was necessary to whisper and mumble in the trenches. He'd been prone to shouting the majority of his life. Now, he's going to have to train himself out of mumbling. The task is already giving him a headache. 

"No more iron rations," Shuu says, closer to his usual volume. "I shan't miss those."

"No," Kanae says, very dozily. "It's very warm."

It's not a complaint. The heat of the carriage is not something either of them are used to anymore. Shuu knows he shouldn't still be cold, but he is.

"We will have chocolate biscuits," Shuu says as Kanae's eyes begin to droop again. 

Kanae smiles at that. "Yes," he murmurs, looking at Shuu with half-shut eyes. "Matsumae promised."

Shuu smiles. Matsumae had sent packages of her and Eliza's biscuits to Shuu and Kanae throughout their service. It made the entire platoon terribly eager for the days Tsukiyama Co.-stamped hampers arrived. There was whisky and Dunlop cheese and admittedly bland oatcakes along with the coveted chocolate biscuits. Shuu had originally shared only the whisky and the biscuits, but, by his second time out to the front and Kanae's first in 1917, he was sharing his entire hamper. He wanted to see his men smile in that terrible winter. Good food and drink makes people smile.

The carriage rattles through the gates to the Tsukiyama estate. The rain has briefly let up, although everything is still wet. It's all very green, Shuu cannot help but think. Everything outside of the cities here in Britain seems so green and lush. There's a part of Shuu that expects to see the dark, dreary mud of No Man's Land every time he blinks. He looks out the window of the carriage at his childhood home at the top of the drive. It feels like a dream.

Or a nightmare. Shuu has been having trouble lately telling those apart.

Mirumo is not there to greet them, although the entirety of the staff is. Logically, Shuu knows he cannot expect his father, who is so very busy, to stand out in the rain and cold. Shuu is happy to see everyone else. He honestly is, and he knows they understand that. He also knows they see the way his eyes sweep over them, looking for his father. Shuu has never been good at hiding his emotions, which is something that the war has not changed about him. He makes himself smile as Matsumae steps forward. She bows. The rest of the staff bow as well. It's perfectly rehearsed.

"Welcome home, Master Shuu, Mister Kanae."

There's an echo. A chorus. Shuu feels his smile wobble. He wants, rather alarmingly, to cry. He cannot, of course. He is the heir of Tsukiyama, a Captain in his own right, Marquess and one day Duke. When he speaks, it's same tone he used to send men over the top, but he knows his emotions are too plain. He is not so changed from the little boy many of the household know. Too loud, too enthusiastic, too mouthy for his own good.

"Thank you, Matsumae, everyone," Shuu says; "It is good to be home."

 

There is a famous propaganda poster that features a girl sitting on her father's lap while her brother plays with toy soldiers at their feet. The girl points to a picture in the book in her lap, her face turned towards her father, who looks outward. 

The poster reads:

_Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?_

The first time Shuu saw the poster was after he'd gone to the Front for the first time in September 1916. It was old for a propaganda poster by then, and he only saw it because Yuma, his first batman, had a copy of it that he used as a dartboard. 

"What a stupid poster," Yuma griped, much to Mairo's agreement. 

"The curtains are nice," Shuu had said, which made everyone laugh.

Shuu was an odd commander. Shuu was book smart, having completed university at Christ Church, Oxford in June 1916 before going to officer training, but only his knowledge of languages was of real use in the trenches. He was odd, but he wasn't hated. He wasn't stupid nor reckless. Shuu had always been good at memorising faces and names, so he learned the names of his men quickly. He was good with maps and could process multiple streams of information, so he was able to adapt the commands that came down from the top. In the mud, he'd learned more practical skills like minor wound dressing and how to be quiet. He thought well on his feet, and he wasn't phased in the heat of battle. 

He was, in the end, a good commander. Shuu doesn't think that he was particularly brave nor that his tactics were particularly innovative, but his platoon had a lower than average casualty rate. His men appreciated that. They grew fond of teasing him, especially after they found out he was the Duke of Bute's heir. Shuu would have gotten mad, but the atmosphere of the trenches, of no-man's land, of the war had started eating at him almost as soon as he set foot in the hole. It ate away at the elitism he'd haboured throughout university, and it started to break down something deep inside of Shuu he doesn't have a name for. It made him cry sometimes, alone in the private quarters being an officer afforded him. It made him sympathetic in a way that he hadn't been before.

It's the sympathy that made his men trust him.

"He's odd," he'd overheard Mairo commenting when Shuu was supposed to be trying to sleep, "but he's..."

There was a shuffling noise. The clinking of Mairo's silver cigarette tin, his sole indulgence. It had been a gift, Mairo had said, a little defensively because Shuu had called it pretty. Shuu hadn't meant anything negative. It is pretty, an etching of a Welsh pastoral scene on the lid.

"The lamb," Shuu had said, a little miffed at Mairo's annoyance. "The detail to the face is amazing."

Mairo had stared at him for a long moment before smiling, a little too toothy. "My tad did it," Mairo had said. "He's an engraver." 

It had made Shuu smile, too. His relationship with his men got better after that. Shuu learned he had to explain himself. His turns of phrases and poetics weren't appreciated by those who hadn't grown up steeped in Shuu's world of classics, languages, and music. Shuu learned to be clear, if in a somewhat roundabout way. He learned how to be quiet when he needed to be, how to scream to be heard over planes and open fire at other times. But he didn't learn, not in time, to hide that he had no hesitation in wielding his sword or his pistol to kill.

His men were smart, if not in the bookish manner Shuu was used to. They noticed.

"He's," Mairo whispered, again thinking Shuu was asleep; Shuu had started to sleep badly around the same time he took to crying in private, "clearly -"

"Shh," Yuma hissed. "He's eccentric. That's all."

A long pause. The wind whistled. It was a very chilly night.

"Well," Mairo muttered, "better someone like him than Big Madam."

Big Madam was Mairo's nickname for his previous commander, a Major Powell, who was renowned for his cruelty and high casualty rates. Mairo had acted up under Big Madam's command and had been hastily transferred under Shuu's command. It did not pass Shuu by that his platoon was made up of men who had been considered troublesome by their previous commanders. Conscription had brought in a broader mixture of people, and Shuu didn't attempt to fool himself into thinking that he, a Scottish aristocratic upstart, would receive a cohesive machine. Mirumo's influence wasn't strong in the army, which was why Shuu was there in the first place. The Tsukiyama family sensed the world was changing; Shuu was just as much a tool in expanding the family's influence as anyone else.

No one is born into this world wanting to kill. 

Shuu sucks in a breath. He blinks rapidly. Shakes his head. He sets his book down in his lap, looking up and around himself. The familiar wood and carpets of the family library surround him. Shuu breathes out. Reaches up and rubs his eyes.

A headache. Bad eyesight runs in the family. Perhaps he should have his eyes checked.

Shuu sighs. He moves the book to the reading table. Stands up and sets the woolen blanket he had over his lap on the chair. He stretches. Feels his back and left shoulder pop. 

"Kanae!" Shuu calls, leaning out the east window of the library. "Where are you?"

Kanae appears in the window of the glasshouse. Waves. Shuu waves back, motioning for Kanae to come back to the house and the library. Kanae raises a hands in acknowledgement before disappearing back inside. Shuu steps back in. Pulls the windows closed against the dreary weather. 

He hopes, as he makes his way back towards the fire and his books, that it will not be as terrible a weather as last year. It can't be, Shuu tries to tell himself. After all, weather is always partly in the mind. It couldn't help being miserable this past year, deep in the trenches. Even with the news of the spreading influenza, it cannot possibly be as bad.

It cannot.

Shuu's head throbs. He sits back down by the fire. Rests his elbows on his knees. His forehead head on his upturned hands. He hadn't come to the library to think about this. On the table, there's a volume of Virgil's _Georgics_ that he's been attempting to translate for the past two and a half years. He's a little over halfway through it, which is much the same as where he left it last May, when he last came home. He's only made fifty pages progress since he graduated university. 

He'd meant the translation as a gift to Papa two Christmases ago.

"Master Shuu?" 

Kanae. Shuu opens his eyes. Lets Kanae take his hands. Kanae doesn't smile. Doesn't ask if he's alright. Out of everyone in the house, Kanae understands. The missing pinky and ring fingers on Kanae's left hand mar the symmetry of their hands. 

_shit shit Kanae don't -_

"It's cold," Kanae says, very gently. "I will build the fire back up."

 

Despite what Shuu tells himself during the day, he has changed.

It's irrevocable, Shuu suspects. He doesn't let Matsumae dress him anymore. It's not because he doesn't want her to. It's because the last time she did, a little over a year ago when Shuu came home to recover from gas burns, the sight of the gnarled, splotchy scars on his feet and legs made her hands tremble so badly dressing took almost half an hour. He only takes coffee at breakfast, which he takes in his private reception room. As he sleeps badly, his stomach wakes unsettled, and he's poor company before he's had time to properly wake. He elects, as he never used to, to spend a lot of time alone. He's supposedly working on Virgil translations, but, really, Shuu is not sure where his head is most days.

Kanae has changed as well. He goes out even in the inclement weather to the glasshouses, even though Kanae's position in the household will never be that of a servant again. There's talk of Kanae taking over some business in Germany, once things clear up and trade is stable. If this had been before the war, Kanae would have leap at the chance, eager to prove himself and to see his homeland again. Now, Kanae grits his teeth and shields his bad hand. He says nothing, for if this is what Mirumo decides, Kanae must obey. It's made the three dinners since they arrived back which they've shared with Mirumo terribly awkward.

"Papa," Shuu starts, after Kanae has excused himself from the drawing room; the mode of address is too childish but it's already left his mouth, "perhaps we should wait until after the Peace Conference to discuss such things."

Mirumo doesn't respond. Shuu watches his father sip his whisky. He is reading the evening paper. Shuu has a cup of coffee. He looks down at it. It's very dark. With the headaches he's been suffering, he's opted to stay away from liquor until the Christmas Eve party when it will be impolite to abstain. Shuu didn't grow up drinking much coffee, but he was never fond of tea. He got very used to coffee in university.

Shuu calls on Kanae late that evening. It does not disturb Kanae's sleep. Kanae greets him in the shirtsleeves of his dinner suit. There's a fresh lamp lit at his desk, which means Kanae was not about to sleep any time soon. Both of them do not sleep well.

"Let's go down to the kitchens," Shuu says.

It's an imitation of when Shuu would be back from Eton and would shake Kanae awake in the middle of the night. It's a poor imitation. Kanae now has proper rooms instead of the servant quarters he shared with two other boys, George and Naver, both of whom died in Gallipoli. Shuu hadn't known them very well. Kanae does not speak of them. 

"Do you want more sweets?" Kanae asks, carrying the lamp in front of them. 

When they were young, Shuu was always sneaking sweets, even up through his first year in university. He liked chocolates and candied orange peels best. Kanae didn't have as much of a sweet tooth, but he would eat whatever Shuu picked, smiling all the while. Nowadays, the only sweet thing that Shuu or Kanae feel inclined to eat are Matsumae's biscuits. She didn't make any today.

Perhaps she's realised it's all that Shuu and Kanae are eating. That and coffee.

"No," Shuu says, and he nods towards the opposite hall. "Let's sit with Bach for a bit instead."

Shuu builds the fire while Kanae sets the lamp down and retrieves blankets from the trunk by the door. A year ago, Kanae would have insisted on doing this all himself. Now, when they are together, they do not have to pretend that nothing has changed. Kanae joins Shuu on the rug that Shuu has dragged close to the fire. They cover themselves each in blankets. Kanae fishes out a cigarette holder and lighter. They light up together, sitting back to back.

"Master Shuu," Kanae says after they're both on their second cigarettes, "I have a selfish request."

Shuu nods. Breathes in a lungful of smoke.

"Don't," Kanae whispers, "send me away."

Shuu breathes out. He reaches down. Tangles his fingers in Kanae's good hand. Kanae grasps back. Kanae's cigarette burns between them. Ash flakes onto the carpet.

They stay like that, smoking by the fire, until dawn. Matsumae comes to fetch them in the morning. Kanae doesn't stir from where he rests, head pillowed on Shuu's chest. Shuu looks up at Matsumae. She stands with a basin of hot water resting on her towel-clad arms. A small, private smile curves her lips. Lights her eyes.

"You," she says, which makes Kanae stir, "look like when we were children."

It makes Shuu smile. Kanae murmurs inaudibly, blinking up at Matsumae before shifting slightly to look up at Shuu. His eyes are half-lidded and shadowed. Matsumae bends down to set the basin down. She kneels by them, folding the towels over her lap.

She washes their faces. Shaves them. It's nostalgic. It helps Shuu wake up. Feel something close to what he is supposed to be: the heir of this house and not the Captain waiting for gas and fire. It's temporary, and it probably won't last more than a few hours at most. Matsumae stands up with dirty towels and basin. 

"Would you like breakfast brought here?"

Shuu nods. Kanae has moved to the fire, working on building it back up again. Matsumae looks between them. At the blankets. The fact they're still in their dinner clothes. Her expression sobers. 

"I will bring day clothes," she says, and it is not a reprimand but a reminder. "Today is the twentieth."

Four days until Christmas Eve. Shuu looks down at his hands. The blankets. He should be helping prepare the household for the Hogmanay festivities. There are menus to plan. Guest lists to check. Rooms to prepare. Shuu used to love working with everyone on this. Now, Shuu can barely motivate himself to do more than drink coffee and sit by the fire. He has not been down to the kitchens since returning home. He has not gone riding with Matsumae nor to the glasshouses with Kanae. He hasn't even completed the translation of Virgil for Papa.

"Yes," Shuu murmurs, although it sounds like his voice is coming from underwater. "I know."

 

It is fairly popular these days for people to want to publish memoirs of the war.

They sell well, much like war poems did during the war. Some are serialised in newspapers and magazines. Shuu knows a couple of people from university and several more from Eton who are publishing or working on writing up their memoirs. Chronicling their childhoods, their service, what they thought, what they saw. People are desperate to understand what happened even though they lived the war. Or, perhaps, it is because they lived the war.

"Have you considered it?" Kanae asks. 

He asks this after Shuu reads a letter from Mairo, who has written to inform Shuu he is thankful for the good word Shuu put in for his and his father's employment at Liberty. He wrote, too, that his father was thinking of writing about his work in munitions from the eyes of an artist. Kanae had read the letter over Shuu's shoulder in the library. It is not proper, but Shuu does not mind. He would have passed the letter to Kanae to read right after.

"Absolutely not," Shuu says.

It does not surprise Kanae, who takes the letter and hands Shuu the updated guest list. There are many stories that Shuu will never tell. Many that Kanae will never tell. Neither of them have experiences that would do well on paper.

Of these experience, there is one that Shuu doesn't find particularly alarming but is the most likely to get him in trouble. Ironically, it did not occur in the trenches or even on a battlefield. It took place when Shuu was recovering of his gas wounds in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. His status as an officer and the Marquess allowed him a private room, and Papa sent Matsumae to attend him. When he was recovered enough to have time to convalesce before returning to the front, Shuu and Matsumae made use of the West End apartment instead of making the long trek back to Bute.

One afternoon, not long after Shuu was cleared to return to duty and was simply idling away time as he awaited orders, Shuu went out. It was an unusually clear if brisk evening, and the fresh air coming from the sea was pleasant. He started the walk in just after a light lunch and meandered slowly on his just-healed legs until he reached the Botanic Gardens. He made his way slowly up the sloping hill towards the Kibble Palace glasshouse.

Shuu, in his youth, had visited Glasgow four times. On each of those visits, Papa had had business, and Shuu had been sent away to amuse himself. The last time, when Shuu was sixteen and on Easter break from Eton, he come here. The Kibble Palace has a collection of ferns from New Zealand and Australia. Back then, Matsumae and Kanae had accompanied him, Matsumae humouring Shuu and Kanae's shared interest in botany. Shuu remembers blathering on for the hour they spent here. He used to love the sound of his own voice.

This time, the visit to the ferns was quiet. Because of the mild weather, most people were outside or in the other parts of the glasshouses. The main attraction was the begonia collection. The ferns were green and unassuming, no seeds beneath their leaves at this time of the year. Shuu sats down on the bench, leaning back against it. The atmosphere was warm, and the scent of vegetation was very pleasant. It calmed something that Shuu did not entirely understand in his chest.

After a long time, in which Shuu simply sat among the ferns and breathes, slow footsteps alerted him to someone else's approach. Shuu turned his head to the right in time to see a young man wearing a white medical armband at the lip of the path. The man stopped as their eyes met. He had an eyepatch over his left eye. His hands were at his sides. He hadn't had any hobble in his steps.

"Oh," the man said, very softly; there was a local tilt to the way he formed the vowel. "Good afternoon."

Shuu smiled, a little slow. "Good afternoon." 

They stared at each other for a long moment. The man's eyes moved over Shuu's breast. Shoulders. Taking in his rank. Shuu's gaze drifted in much the same manner. The man was a Second Lieutenant of the Royal Flying Corps. It made Shuu blink. Open his mouth.

"You are a pilot?"

The man blinked. For a moment, Shuu thought he had made a mistake. Some people, even though they must wear their uniforms, did not like to focus on it. Shuu knew he had moments of this. He opened his mouth again to apologise, but the man shifted. He smiled, a little nervously but not unwelcoming. He was the type of person who smiled with his entire face.

"Not anymore," he said, and he pointed with a bit of humour to his covered eye. "Unless this miraculously heals."

Oh. Of course. Shuu grimaced. 

"I'm sorry," he said, and it was too loud; Shuu sighed. "That should have been obvious."

The man shrugged. He didn't look away from Shuu. He blinked again as his hand came back to his side. He stood in parade rest unconsciously.

"I've seen you," he said, a little uncertain as his eye flicked to Shuu's upper arm and then back to his face. "You were in hospital not too long ago?"

Shuu nodded. He motioned needlessly to his unadorned arm. 

"I turned it in this morning," he said. "I'm awaiting orders."

"Oh," the man said before pausing and struggling a little because it was neither a happy nor a sad thing; it was simply how it was.

Shuu nodded again. There wasn't anything to say. The man stood for a moment, the two of them watching each other. It was quiet. The glasshouse was very warm.

"Would you," Shuu said, and his voice was slow, soft, and more than a little stilted, "like to sit down?"

The man blinked. Once. Twice. A small smile twitched his lips. Nervous again but also not unwelcoming.

"Yes," he said, inclining his head just slightly. "Thank you."

Shuu shifted to the left. The man made his way to the bench. Watching him move, Shuu could tell that his slow gait wasn't due to injury. It was steady and more due to discomfort for the lost field of sight. He sat down in the vacated space, leaning back and folding his hands his lap. He turned his head, looking at Shuu with the same steady watchfulness they'd been engaged in before.

"Do you," the man started, the careful, halting tone at odds with the gaze, "mind me asking?"

"About?"

The man's eye flickered. Took in Shuu's face. Neck. Shoulders. They worked their way down. It was a concise, intense cataloguing. Shuu swallowed. When the man met Shuu's gaze again, it was very bold.

"Your injury."

"Ah," Shuu said, and he felt his lips twist; it was not a smile, but Shuu didn't know what else to call it. "Gas. My boots saved my feet."

The man's mouth formed into an _O_. His eye widened even as he blinked.

"I'm," the man said, and it was very soft and very sincere, "glad."

For the first time since he woke up in the field hospital, something in Shuu's chest uncurled. It must have done something to his face, his demeanour, or both because the man beside him blinked again. Something shifted in the intensity of his gaze. Some of the wariness eased. 

"I wish," Shuu said, and it was a voice he barely recognised; it was whimsical, "I could have kept them. The boots, I mean. They were rather heroic."

It earned him a bright, honest laugh. It moved the man's entire face. His cheeks rose and his eye crinkled. His hands relaxed on his lap. There was a lightness to Shuu's chest. A warmth to his stomach.

"Would you," Shuu said, very low, "like to go for tea?"

 

There are three guests who are arriving today. One is the Baron Matasaka Kamishiro, who is thankfully not bringing his daughter, the Hon Miss Rize. Shuu is not particularly looking forward to interacting with the Baron. He holds no particular ill will against the Baron, but, since they grew into adulthood, Shuu and Rize have not gotten along. In their youth, they did not pay much attention to each other aside to make polite conversation, but there had been a fairly tumultuous summer when Shuu was nineteen and Rize seventeen. They'd exchanged letters at their fathers' prompting. It had not ended well for a variety of reasons. Shuu does not look forward to the inevitable awkwardness.

"All of today's arrivals should be here by tea," Matsumae says she meets Shuu on his way out to join Kanae in the glasshouses.

"Then I am unfortunately occupied for tea," Shuu says, very bland.

There is a short silence. Matsumae's expression gives nothing away. They grew up together. Shuu is not a child. He sighs. 

"Do not worry. I will present myself shortly after."

He sets his hat on his head and steps out. The rain has tapered off temporarily. Shuu takes his time on the wet path. The other two people arriving today aren't people that Shuu knows. They are a Mister Ken Kaneki and a Mister Hideyoshi Nagachika, who were both labeled as artists. Shuu supposes he should have attempted to speak with Mirumo about their business, but Mirumo has been occupied with correspondence for the morning. Shuu knows he is more than allowed to interrupt, but he is reluctant to do so.

Instead, he has removed himself to the glasshouses with Kanae. Kanae is attending to his ongoing botany project of breeding roses. He doesn't look up as Shuu joins him, his entire attention occupied with pruning. Shuu draws up behind Kanae, looking over the wintering plants. Shuu reaches up, removing his hat and holding it loosely in his hands.

"Are you planning to graft onto this one come summer?"

Kanae hums, gently untangling two close-growing stems from each other. "It is a good candidate," he murmurs, a fond, small smile on his lips. 

It makes Shuu smile as well. He stands beside Kanae, content to watch his cousin work. There are a couple other people in the glasshouse, so Shuu does not have the liberty to squat down and join Kanae in the work. Shuu himself has never been half as talented at botany and horticulture as Kanae. He appreciates the beauty of nature, but Shuu did not have the patience for it. Shuu had been attracted to what he'd considered more exciting and important before the war. Poetry, language, high society. Billiards, fox hunting, salon debate. Cloistered off in Eton and then in Christ Church, Shuu had thought he'd known all the world had to offer. That he had all the answers.

Shuu had been, he realises now, an imbecile.

Kanae finishes with the bush. He sits back on his heels. Tilts his head to look up at Shuu. It's a steady gaze they share.

"It is late, Master Shuu," Kanae says, the language of their stations. "You should return for tea."

Shuu breathes out. Nods. He knows that Kanae can tell he is not enthusiastic for tea. Kanae saw the guest lists and was likely informed of the schedule. Neither of them are much for tea these days, especially when there are none of Matsumae's biscuits. Kanae's lips twitch.

"I will see you at dinner," Shuu says.

"Of course," Kanae says, very softly.

It is immature and poor of his rank and station, but Shuu drags his feet on the way back to the main house. He does not want to see the Baron, who Shuu fully suspects has heard the entirety of the disastrous exchange between Shuu and his daughter. Looking back on it, Shuu recognises now that he was ungallant in his conduct, but he still holds that the things that Rize said were equally intolerable. Shuu should not have responded after the third letter. He should have simply informed his father he did to think any further communication would be viable. He should not have insulted Rize has he had, should not have let his temper get the better him. That is Shuu's fault. That the Baron still does business with the Tsukiyama family says much for Mirumo and the Baron's friendship.

Matsumae meets him at the door. She raises an eyebrow at him as he hands her his hat. Shuu realises she must have been watching him meandering up the path, kicking little pebbles like a child. He grimaces.

"Master Mirumo and the guests are in the western drawing room."

Shuu shakes his head as she offers to take his gloves and coat. "Thank you."

Matsumae steps back. Shuu makes his way towards the west wing of the house, deliberately taking the long way through the main halls of the house. Usually, Shuu would use the servant passages, both because they're faster and because he used to enjoy popping out and giving everyone a bit of a surprise. Shuu still uses the servant passages and doors, but he doesn't enjoy surprises anymore.

The doors to the sitting room are slightly ajar. Shuu can hear his father and the Baron discussing what sounds like fairly light business. Shuu stops on the hallway carpet. He pulls off his gloves. Folds them in his hands. The kid leather is very soft and pleasing. It's not particularly warm. Shuu is stalling.

Deep breath. Step forward. Shuu is a Captain. He is the Marquess, heir to the Duke of Bute. He needs act like it.

Shuu opens the sitting room doors. It draws everyone's attention except for his father, who is sitting with his back to the door. The Baron doesn't smile, but that is not unusual. The Baron is a dour man. Shuu inclines his head.

"I apologise for my tardiness," he says, drawing back up and looking over the other two occupants, "I -"

Whatever excuse Shuu had to offer dries up in his throat.

Adjacent the Baron and sitting beside the blond-haired man Shuu does not know is the pilot from Glasgow. 

He looks at Shuu, his singular eye impossibly wide.

Shuu has dropped his gloves. The right falls on the carpet. The left over his right shoe. His heart clogs his throat. It attempts to beat out of his ears.

"Shuu," Mirumo says; he turns in his chair and faces his son, "this Mister Hideyoshi Nagachika, who I have hired to install electric lighting. And this is the painter I commissioned, Mister Ken Kaneki. Mister Nagachika, Mister Kaneki," and he turns back to them both with a small, thin smile, "this is my son."

It is an absurd comedy.


	2. December 1918, Part 2

**National Archives of Scotland, DBMA108/6-2**  
_Ken Kaneki, (also: Haise Sasaki), Diaries and Personal Papers; Box 2, Diaries from 1917 to 1927_

       
_20 December 1917_   


     (A ferry ticket stub for Wemyss Bay to Rothesay is stapled in at the top of the page)

    Arrived on time. Cold and wet. Only mild winds. A heated carriage had been sent to pick me & Hide up. A second, identical carriage came for a man. Baron Kamishiro. Very broad and tall. Looks like a wrestler. Ride was warm and very pleasant. Scenery must be beautiful in summer.

    Arrived at Tsukiyama House. Massive, terrifying, in Gothic Revival style. I wanted to go home. It is good that Hide was with me else I would walked back to Rothesay even in the weather and dark. I need the money. 

    Shown to a sitting room (West; Turkey Red textiles). The Duke greeted. Tall, greying, very noble stature. He and the Baron are old friends (Eton + Christ Church). Tea served with mince pies & Turkish delight--superb. The Marquess sent his apologies. He would be joining us after some business.

    "This is a surprise," the Duke informed me. "My son could do with some cheering now that the war is finally over."

    I did not know how to respond. Hide saved me. Talked about the renovations he's been hired to do. The Baron picked up the conversation. Perhaps he is kinder than he looks.

    Finished tea & the Marquess arrived. His appearance gave me a shock. He is as stunning as I remember him. He is my fern soldier.

    He was shocked, too. Badly. In this, we were in harmony.

 

Mirumo is speaking. 

Papa is speaking. 

Shuu should be listening. But Shuu cannot hear him. He cannot hear anything. His heart is in his ears. In his brain. There is a memory on the couch. He is being watched. He is the centre of the attention. 

_it's a long way it's a long way Tipperary Tipperary_

Shuu opens his mouth. It's already open. He's gaping. A fool. Shuu is a fool. A fool -

"I'm sorry," he says, bowing to pick up his gloves; his legs and feet shriek in memory of pain that he knows isn't real. "I forgot. My hat. I. Left it. Excuse--excuse me."

He straightens up. Turns. About face. He steps out through the doors. Turns right. Quick march. He doesn't have the presence of mind to question what his body is doing. A faint voice, the vestiges of his breeding and social station, screams at him. He is unable to heed it. This is not -

_smile, smile, smile_

Kanae is in the glasshouses. He has not been summoned. Matsumae is in the house. She has his hat. Or she knows where it's gone. Shuu has to find Matsumae. 

He spots, coming out of one of the servant staircases, Eliza. She's carrying fresh bed linens. She spots him at almost the same moment, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise and alarm. He doesn't know what he looks like. It didn't matter a month and a half ago. He forces himself to stop far enough from her that he cannot reach out. He opens his mouth.

"Matsumae," he says, clearly a plea; he is not good at hiding his emotions. "Matsumae -"

It is of great credit to Eliza's character that she does not recoil. Instead, she smiles, a little unsettled but valiantly. She speaks gently and calmly. Warm, even. It makes him want to cry.

"Miss Matsumae just went to set up your reception room, Master Shuu."

Shuu nods. He makes a noise. Maybe it is a thank you. Maybe it is desperate. He does not know. He steps forward as Eliza steps aside, allowing him to journey up the staircase. It brings out through the servant's entrance to the western conservatory. It's a room that is rarely used. It was his mother's favourite. With its high windows, it's the most pleasant in the long days of late spring through early fall. 

Now, it is dim. It is past four in the afternoon, and night is already falling. He passes through the room hurriedly. His legs and feet wail. His ankle and knees threaten to refuse his weight. It feels like he is crawling through mud, just making it from the western conservatory to his own rooms.

"Matsumae!"

She looks up in surprise from where she's turning pillows on his couch. His hat hangs neatly by the bedroom door to dry off. 

"Master Shuu?" she asks, her eyes wide as she looks him over. "What is it? Has something happened?"

He shakes his head. Nods his head. He starts to raise his hands and finds that he's crushed his gloves. He stares at them for a long moment. 

_you've a lucifer lucifer lucifer_

"Matsumae," he says, a terrifying thing.

It is broken.

 

There is a traitorous part of Shuu that misses the war.

He doesn't miss the death. He doesn't miss the stench of unwashed bodies, of skin rotting due to the constant wet. He doesn't miss the gas whistle, the roar of biplanes, the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire. He doesn't miss the mud or the way it stank in summer or the cold and damp that was a constant at night. He thought he was prepared for that at least because he is from Scotland, but it was different being mired in it day in and day out. He does not miss these things.

In fact, Shuu does not know why he misses the war. He is so very glad not to have to wear his uniform all the time. He never wants to eat iron ration and drink coffee so bitter it's tasteless again. Despite how he came to get on with his men, he doesn't miss them. He is happy that Mairo reached out to him for help finding work in London. He has heard that Yuma has found a job down in Glasgow, reporting for the _Herald_. Letters are enough. The knowledge that his sergeants are well and getting on as any of them can get on is a great source of comfort.

There is nothing that makes him wish to go back to war. He is so very glad it is over. He is so very thankful to have survived. When Armistice was announced, he stood with the telegram in hand and cried. It was the first and only time he cried in front of his men, and, once he read them the words, inelegantly but sufficiently through sobs, they understood. None of them wanted to die there in the trenches that boxed them as if they were already six feet under.

That Shuu misses the war makes him hate himself. There is no rhyme or reason because he hated the war. He was a good commander, and he was respected by his men, but he resented the war even when he was still cloistered off in Christ Church. He'd wanted to pursue a masters in classics. He'd gone to war because being a pacifist was worse. No one ever put a white feather in his pocket, but he couldn't allow his family to attract bad press. Mirumo wanted him in the Army for the world was changing. So Shuu went to war, a little late and with high society hunting and sword play to supplement his useless degree. He was completely unprepared.

"The master," Matsumae says, "would like Mister Kaneki to paint you in your uniform." 

She pours him another cup of something he does not recognise. He raises the cup to his lips. It tastes bitter even though she has been generous with the honey. It's making him feel lightheaded. It makes it difficult to focus on one thought for too long. He would ask what is in it, but he suspects it is better if he does not know.

"Has it been cleaned?"

"We will have it ready for tomorrow," Matsumae says, setting the pot down on the serving tray and turning to smooth the covers at the foot of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

Shuu looks down at the cup. He's drunk half of it. His hands aren't shaking anymore. Even so, he feels unsteady. When he looks up, Matsumae is standing by the right side of his bed again. He feels like he's lost track of time.

"I don't like this."

"You probably didn't need a second cup," Matsumae agrees.

She extends her hands. Shuu passes the cup over. He settles back against the pillows, watching Matsumae move to place the cup on the tray with the pot and a plate with what looks like a couple of plain oatcakes. Matsumae picks up the plate and brings it to him. Holds it out. He does not feel hungry at all, but he doesn't remember if he's eaten today. He doesn't know if Kanae has eaten today. He should tell Matsumae. He asks too much of Matsumae. 

"Eat these and then try to sleep."

Shuu accepts the plate. He breaks one of the oatcakes in half. The half into a fourth. Shuu blinks. Looks up. To Matsumae. He feels dizzy.

"Matsumae," he says; she watches him calmly, steadily. "Please pass on my apologies for my behaviour this afternoon."

"I already have," she says, calm and warm and gentle. "Everyone wishes you a speedy recovery."

It draws a noise from his throat. It sounds like a laugh. It isn't funny. He looks down at the plate. The fourth of an oatcake between his thumb and middle finger. He lifts it to his lips. Chews. Swallows. It doesn't taste like anything. He used to taste things. Now, the most he can taste is the warmth of chocolate, the coiling sweetness of honey, and bitterness. Shuu has never been fond of bitter things.

"You recognise him," Shuu whispers as he pick up the other fourth of oatcake, "don't you?"

There's a long silence. Shuu puts food in his mouth. Chews. Swallows. The bed dips as Matsumae sits down beside him. She folds his hands in her lap. Her gaze is towards the lit lamp on the bedside table.

"He is the pilot you had over for tea."

Shuu breaks off a small piece of the half oatcake. He puts it in his mouth. Matsumae breathes out, a long, thin sigh.

"I assure you," she says, very softly, "I did not breathe a word."

It makes Shuu focus. Or focus as much as he is currently able, which isn't much. He swallows and reaches out. Catches his fingers clumsily on her left sleeve. It makes her look at him. Questioning. Searching.

"No," Shuu says, plain and clear; this is something the war gave him. "That is not what I meant. I only wanted to know if -"

It sticks. His fingers tighten on Matsumae's sleeve. She looks at him with wide eyes. Shuu swallows. It's like chewing sand. Shuu was a good commander. A good commander reassures his troops. A better commander tells the truth.

"I thought," Shuu whispers, like it is a secret; maybe it is, "I was seeing things."

Matsumae's gaze shifts. Alarm. Worry. Upset. She reaches up and takes his hand. Her hold is strong and firm. It is so reassuring Shuu nearly begins crying again.

"Do you?" she asks, hushed and hurried. "Are you?"

Shuu shakes his head. He doesn't see things, but he knows many who do. There were men who ran out into enemy fire, thinking they saw a dead comrade. Last July, after Kanae rejoined him after getting his fingers shot off in May, they met a Captain who gave all of his orders a couple feet to the right of everyone in the room. There was a name for whatever was there. Kanae would probably remember it because he definitely told Yuma and Mairo, but Shuu has opted to forget as much as possible about that incident. 

Matsumae's grip softens. She breathes out. She still holds Shuu's hand, which she looks down at. For a long moment, she rubs her right thumb over his knuckles, tracing the ridges and pits of calluses and scarring. A pianist's hands are supposed to be beautiful. Shuu does not mourn these tiny deformations, though. He can play the piano perfectly fine. Kanae's missing fingers have robbed him of the violin.

"That's a relief," she breathes, catching his gaze again and smiling, small and sad. "I know there are doctors, but..."

The smile falters. Shuu shifts his fingers to entwine with her left hand. They both know well that no such doctor, no matter how qualified, is acceptable. There is only one heir to this house. There can be no mad heir to the Duke of Bute. There can be no doubts to the foundations of the house.

"I'm sorry," Shuu says. 

Matsumae squeezes his hand. She does not smile. Unlike when they was young, Shuu means his words. Matsumae knows what condition he was shipped back in after half-drowning in gas. She listened to him wake from nightmares after being discharged from the hospital. She brought him and the pilot he now has a name for their tea. There is a sadness to her gaze that threatens to spill over.

"Can you," Shuu murmurs, so that she may keep her dignity, "make sure Kanae knows what has occurred?"

She blinks. Watches him steadily. Centering herself.

"Everything?"

Shuu nods. "Yes," he says because even if he somehow misses the war, he has to believe he has some measure of control over the man he's become. "Everything."

 

It is not that Shuu deliberately kept Kanae out of the loop. Kanae has his own secrets, and they made many more together in the war. In some of those, Yuma and Mairo are also complicit. They know about Kanae because they were there when Kanae's fingers were shot off. 

"Don't," Kanae had choked as Yuma wrapped his arm around Kanae's chest, eyes going wide as he started to lift, "let them undress me -"

Yuma had met Shuu's eyes. No one has ever told Shuu what he looked like in that moment, but it must have been terrifying. Yuma nodded. It is the only time that Shuu ever saw him afraid.

"Come back to me." 

They both nodded. Kanae in tears and pain. Yuma in terror. Shuu turned away. He was out of bullets in his pistol, so he drew his sword. He was the commander, and he had been formally promoted to full Lieutenant only a month before. He could not go and make sure that Kanae was not stripped. He could not make sure that the roles they had had fulfilled since Kanae came into the Tsukiyama household would hold. He had to trust Yuma and depend on Kanae's strength. 

Unusually, perhaps because Shuu's mind was elsewhere and he was too quick with his sword and his words, his platoon sustained high casualties by its statistics. Of his fifty men, there were five dead and eleven wounded. It took him and the remains of his platoon into reserves for over a month, which, in some ways, was a relief. The Americans were trickling in, and there was a sense among some that maybe the war was reaching a tipping point. Shuu listened, particularly to Yuma and Mairo's blathering over cigarettes, but he knows it was obvious his mind was elsewhere. Yuma didn't look him in the eye for a fortnight following the Third Battle of the Aisne.

"I hope," Mairo said, very softly but still audible; Shuu remembers blinking and realising he'd just been staring into space, "they stay home and don't come back."

Yuma glanced nervously. First at Shuu, who was aware that he likely still looked vacant, and then at Mairo, who had been carrying a storm cloud for weeks. They both frowned. 

"Mairo -"

"I mean it," Mairo said, and it was a little louder but not yet over a whisper. "I don't want anyone to ever have to come back here. I -"

"Mairo!" Yuma hissed. 

His eyes darted first to Shuu, who may have blinked, and then around the dim quarters. It was technically officers only, but no one else was here because it was late and quiet. There was a brothel nearby. Shuu had no desire to go, which made his fellows laugh at him. They warned him that he would get lonely. Maybe he was lonely but not for that sort of company. He's a romantic, they said. It was preferable that they believe that.

Across the table, Mairo's hands were fists on the tabletop. His expression had turned mulish, blood working up his neck to his ear.

"No," Mairo said, so soft but still a shout. "This is wrong. This world is _wrong_. And if," he said, a little louder as he looked right at Shuu, every inch of him burning, "you want me shot at dawn, then _shoot me_. I know you can."

It slashed open something inside of Shuu that had been festering for days. Weeks. Maybe since the war started. Those words cut open something so utterly rotten that it make bile rise up in his throat. Everything went cold. Shuu didn't grow up with asthma, but he remembers another boy at Eton, Alan Cunningham, who had. Once, after over-exerting himself at football, Alan had an attack. Shuu remember very clearly helping Alan to the nurse only to witness him seemingly drowned in an ice bath. 

It was like that. Bile in his throat and so cold he could die.

"No," and it was too plain, too loud, too much everything he had always been. "No." 

It was quiet. Mairo stared at him. He wasn't burning in the same way as before, but there was something deeply unsettling in his gaze. Yuma watched the two of them, his eyes flicking back and forth. Shuu realised that he was breathing through his mouth. Short gasps that collected spit around his tongue and bottom teeth. He shut his mouth. Breathed through his nose. He was too close to all the things that a commander is never not supposed to be.

They didn't talk about it. Not because it was dangerous to sprout such unpatriotic and bleak sentiments but because, for all of their understanding of each other, there were divisions, even in that disintegrating world. Yuma and Mairo came from humble backgrounds. Yuma was ironically from Inveraray, where his father worked as a prisoner governor. Mairo was from a family of artists, although he himself only had an eye for it and not much skill. They had both joined the Army well before the war. They were both over two decades older than Shuu. 

"It's a long way to Tipperary," Yuma often hummed, "to the sweetest girl I know!"

Everyone talked about their girl. Or their lack of a girl. It was an incessant thing, filling the lulls in fighting and the intense boredom. Shuu had nothing to share on that topic. He'd once recounted his disastrous letter exchange with Rize on one of the rare occasions that he'd partaken in drinks. His memory of that night is fairly foggy, but he remembers laughter and Mairo so amused that he was in tears. It was early in Shuu's command, well before he was gassed.

The gas changed him. It didn't just burn him: it seeped through his pants and down his socks and eating away his skin and exposing rippled muscle and pockets of bone beneath. There is fire in Hell, and then there is that. There is no proper way to describe how horrendous it was. Some people say the pain is so great that the mind goes blank; the human mind is unable to process it. Shuu knows this is not wholly true. He was aware for every moment. He has never screamed so loud in his life.

Even in this, he was lucky. His mask worked. He was able to scream instead of choking to death as the same pain ate out his mouth, throat and lungs. There were others that weren't lucky. Maybe their masks weren't secure. Maybe they hadn't been properly cleaned. It didn't matter. Shuu remembers things that he never, ever wants to think about again, but they wake him in the night.

Choking.

Flailing.

Lost.

 

When Shuu wakes in the morning, both Matsumae and Kanae are there. Matsumae is dressed for the day, black servant's uniform crisp and pristine. She has just drawn the curtains, which is what drew Shuu of out of his slumber. Kanae sits at the end of the bed, watching Shuu with droopy eyes. He wears a heavy dressing robe and still has creases from the pillow on his right cheek. 

"Good morning," Matsumae says. "I have brought coffee."

Kanae yawns widely, jaw popping. Shuu reaches up. Rubs the knuckles of his hands over his eyes.

"What time is it?"

"Just past eight," Kanae murmurs.

"It was suggested," Matsumae says, "that you sit for the portrait while there is still natural light in the main study."

This wakes Shuu up a bit more. He pushes himself up into a sitting position. His sleeping shirt had come partially unbuttoned during the night. He tucks the loose ends back under the blankets to afford himself some decency.

"Yes."

Matsumae sets about pouring coffee. There are two cups and two plates with rye bread. Plain. Shuu accepts a cup just as Eliza enters the room, carrying a wash basin and towels. She smiles when Shuu nods in greeting, although she isn't able to hide the pinched concern in her eyes as she sets the basin down at the vanity. She straighten up, hands going to the pocket of her apron.

"I've been asked to deliver this," she says, holding out a letter and handing it to Matsumae, who had just handed Kanae the other coffee cup. "It is from Mister Kaneki to milord."

Matsumae does not show any reaction as she takes the letter. Kanae's eyes slide over the rim of his cup to Shuu. They both sip their coffee.

"Leave it on the bedside table, please," Shuu murmurs.

It is a gross charade. Shuu finishes his coffee while Eliza leaves. Matsumae spreads honey on Shuu's slice of bread and butter on Kanae's before bringing the plates to them. They can do this for themselves, but that would be a disservice to Matsumae. The honey is sweet and bold. Heather. It makes the fact the bread tastes like paper much easier to stomach.

"Rather bold," Kanae mutters, side-eyeing the letter.

It is, even though the envelope at least is properly addressed. Perhaps Kaneki does not know just how bold, although it is difficult for Shuu to imagine that Kaneki would have no idea. After all, Kaneki was an officer and had mentioned that he was going to be picking his art degree back up a year and a half ago. He was either training to fly or had some flying experience prior to the war. He has to come from a fairly respectable background, at least upper middle class. Mirumo would not have hired him otherwise.

Just these thoughts make Shuu's head hurt. He sets his half-eaten toast back on this plate. He wipes his fingers on the napkin before reaching for the letter. It's not sealed, but it is unlikely Eliza read it. They are a fairly close-knit house, and Mirumo is not a harsh lord, but there are certain things that are not tolerated. 

Shuu sighs to himself. He opens the letter.

    Dear Lord Anstruther,

Something inside of Shuu dies. Despite himself, he had half-hoped the letter would begin with the epithet Kaneki had called him when they couldn't exchange names. Fern soldier. It was ridiculous. It had made Shuu laugh, the two of them sitting at the tea table in the Glasgow flat. Shuu hadn't been half as creative. He had called Kaneki _mon oiseau_ after Kaneki rejected Latin terms as too much. It made more sense for Kaneki than the more sentimental _mon poussin_. An adult bird could miss an eye and still find a way to fly.

"I don't know if I want to fly again," Kaneki had laughed self-consciously when Shuu tried to explain himself. "I mean, maybe, a long time from now, but not now."

They had been very silly. Shuu sighs again. Forces himself to return to the letter.

    I wholeheartedly hope that you are feeling better this morning and that the night has been kind. I have spoken at length with The Duke on how the first portrait should be painted, and I thought it best that the sitting should be done in daylight. It should only take a few hours. I hope that this does not bore you and that some conversation is agreeable to help pass the time. I will take sketches and notes so that you will hopefully have time to rest in the later afternoon. 

    I look forward to painting you.

    Yours sincerely,  
Ken Kaneki

Shuu sets the letter down. He looks up at the canopy of his bed. The thing that died inside of him festers as if it could come back to life. Kaneki knew exactly what he was doing. This letter -

"Bold," Shuu says, and laughs. 

 

The eastern conservatory is where, until he was twelve, Shuu took most of his lessons. There are thousands of memories of sitting by the window, listening with varying levels of interest to a tutor drone. He had done well enough by most of his tutors, but, even in subjects such as Latin and French, he had often found his mind wandering. He would sit at the desk, which he didn't really grow into until he hit his second growth spurt at sixteen, swinging his legs in the big chair. 

He had a grand fantasy life, influenced by the great epics, especially the ones he'd seen on stage. Everything, good or bad, brilliant and terrifying: it all gave colour to the sheltered little world he called his own. He'd often imagined Matsumae as Sigrdrífumál and himself as Sigurd, or Mirumo as Izanagi and himself as Kagutsuchi. Both fantasies were equally ridiculous in their own way even though he'd subconsciously based it loosely on his family history. 

The Tsukiyama family had left Japan early in the Edo period before the strict laws of seclusion were put into place. They had traveled first with interests in the Dutch East India Company before eventually settling in Anstruther a year after the Massacre at Glencoe. The family was politically and economically astute, and it consistently married well. The Dukedom of Bute is non-royal but no less than a royal one.

This is not entirely true. 

These are thoughts muddling inside of his brain as he meanders from his room towards the eastern conservatory. He passes a number of the house staff in the halls. Everyone is hurrying to ready the house for Christmas Eve, refreshing decorations, putting out potpourri, and changing carpets and linens. It is not Shuu's place to help with this, but he used to enjoy it, especially stringing and hanging garlands. Now, he plods past, trying his best to seem at least partially pleasant. It doesn't really work. The staff smile back, but their eyes aren't seeing him. They see his uniform. The deliberateness to his step. How he holds himself, unconsciously accounting for the form and weight of weapons he does not carry. He wonders, not for the first time, if the space that everyone gives him is because they are afraid. 

_I haven't become a different person_ , he wants to say, but that would be a lie.

The eastern conservatory's doors are open. The desk he had spent countless hours at has been moved to the wall up against the bookcase still full of his old lesson books. The desk chair, however, has been placed under the large window. Kaneki is there, his supplies spread out over what used to be the tutor's desk. He stands and inclines his head, eyes sweeping over Shuu before lowering to the desktop. A year and a half ago, that sort of gaze would have been warming. Exciting even. Now, all it does is make something twinge.

"Lord -"

"You do not," Shuu interrupts as he crosses the room to take the seat by the window, "have to address me formally."

It earns him silence. Shuu sits down. He looks out the window. It's raining horizontally. The wind wails. After finishing breakfast, Kanae had left for the glasshouses. The glasshouses are warm, and the path is clear and easy to tread except in snow, but perhaps Shuu should have protested. He'll ask for a hot water bottle this evening to make sure Kanae doesn't catch a chill. They have made plans to work on the Virgil translation this evening following dinner. There are only seventy pages left. Perhaps together they can finish it for Mirumo by New Year’s Day.

"Then," Kaneki's voice filters through, lower and bolder, "how would you have me call you?"

Shuu turns back. Kaneki has stepped around the desk. He holds a sketchbook in his arms. Two pencils rest between his right hand's fingers. The open door frames him, much like the ferns did when he stepped into the opening of the pathway in the Kibble Palace. The thing inside of Shuu twinges again. A faint, weak twist. 

" _Mon oiseau_ ," he says, very quietly.

Kaneki's lips lift. Stretch. It's not a full smile, and it is a little lopsided, but it makes a dimple in his left cheek. He looks healthy, much more so than he had when they last knew each other. The eyepatch sits much more naturally in his hair, and, as he steps forward to take the chair at a slight angle to Shuu, it is obvious that the loss of sight no longer hinders his movement. 

"My fern soldier."

Shuu looks down. To his lap and then out the window. The wind howls, splattering fat droplets against the glass. Weather is always partly in the mind. He swallows. Breathes out.

"Tell me," and it is not a command; he cannot command the weather any more than his mind, "how have you been?"


	3. December 1918, Part 3

_Matsumae (b. ??), Head Housekeeper of the Tsukiyama Family (1915-1963), personal memoirs; written 1938/39; digitized March 2013 for the Scottish-Japanese Memory Project_

     I resented the war.

    This is not, even now, a popular opinion. As Kanae often mutters, people need reasons for what they do. Shuu cannot verbalise his opinion, but he smiles when Kanae says these things. So, in this as we were as children, we are together.

    How could I not resent it? It sent Shuu back in increments. Each time he went back out less of him came back. Kanae went out, and the war took his fingers before it started to do the same thing it was doing to Shuu. By the end of it, they came home to us: Shuu with scarred legs, Kanae with eight fingers. Cosmetic deformities in comparison to many others. Many of my old friends from school told me how lucky I was, especially Edith, who had lost her husband in Gallipoli and then her babe to the influenza.

    I stopped talking to my old school friends. Not because I didn't understand why they thought I was lucky but because I did. It was the image we had to project that all was whole and well. I couldn't write to them and ask: what I should for Shuu when he gets lost inside of his own head? Should I have stopped Kanae from throwing out his violin? What should I say when I find them smoking in the music room or the glasshouses, staring into nothing? How do I help them? I knew my friends could not know these things nor did they have answers. Even after twenty years, I am still asking these questions. 

    As the world grows dark again, I wonder if I'll resent what comes from the future, too.

 

From the tea room, Shuu and Kaneki, who was simply _mon oiseau_ or _the pilot_ then, made their way to Shuu's bedroom. It was on the ground floor, facing into the back garden. It was a guest room, but Shuu could not easily climb the stairs to the master bedroom when he was released into Matsumae's care, so they had refit it temporarily for him. Kaneki looked around the room with wide eyes, though, much like he had at the facade of the house, the entranceway, and the tea room. 

"Your housekeeper," Kaneki said, suddenly hesitant as he lingered in the door. 

"Don't worry," Shuu murmured, reaching up to pull the curtains shut.

Kaneki stepped into the room. Shut the door behind him. Shuu lit the lamp at his desk and another by his bedside. Faint light crept in under the curtains. Kaneki breathed out. A long gust of a sigh.

They did not strip fully. Shuu removed his shirt and undershirt but not his trousers and socks because he did not want to put Kaneki off with the sight of his legs. Kaneki mirrored Shuu, left hand drifting awkwardly up to his eyepatch before jerking away.

"How -" Kaneki started before laughing a little, colour working high on his neck, over his cheeks, to his ears. "I don't usually -"

"Nor I," Shuu said, and it made Kaneki look to him, gave him something to focus on. "If you do not -"

"No," Kaneki said hastily before turning fully red. "I mean, yes. I just don't have much time. I have curfew."

Shuu nodded. Daylight wouldn't last much longer, and Kaneki would be expected by at the hospital soon after nightfall. Officers had more leeway, but Kaneki's career was over. He did not appear to come from the sort of powerful family that Shuu did. He had to play it safe. What they were doing: it was far from that.

"We can't do anything complicated," Shuu said, motioning to his legs.

"Oh," Kaneki breathed, his lips twitching; neither of them wanted sympathy. "Of course."

Their hands were callused. Shuu from his pistol and sword. Kaneki from pistol and climbing in and out of biplanes. Shuu mouthed the rough edges of shrapnel scars on the left side of Kaneki's jaw and neck while his fingers traced unsuspectingly over a pitted scar just beneath the belt. It makes Shuu pause even as Kaneki breathes out a laugh. 

"Appendicitis."

"Ah," Shuu murmurs.

They had to be careful to not agitate, to telegraph all moves in each other's line of sight. Kaneki reached up to stroke his hands through Shuu's hair, balancing with one knee between Shuu's thighs and the other on the outside of the right. It let him continuously see what he was doing while keeping off of Shuu's legs. It was up to Shuu to undo their belts so that Kaneki didn't accidentally overbalance on the bed.

"You know," Kaneki chuckled, his hands gripping a little uncomfortably on Shuu's shoulders, "I have never done this with light before."

It made Shuu laugh. It was loud and robust, and it turned Kaneki's chuckles into answering guffaws. It wasn't even that such a realisation was funny because it wasn't. Rather, it was ironic that the war would rob Kaneki of an eye and career but give him this instead. 

"I hope I make a good first impression," Shuu boasted. 

Kaneki snorted but didn't take his eyes off Shuu's hands. They were formed differently in length and girth, although they were both uncircumcised. Shuu grasped Kaneki, sliding his hand loosely from base to head before swiping his thumb over the tip. He unconsciously licked his lips, which made Kaneki laugh again, breathier and wanting. 

"You look like you want to eat me."

Shuu looked up. He smiled in a way that he had been told in the past made him look utterly wicked. Kaneki stared at him, mouth open. Transfixed. 

"If my legs weren't like this, that's exactly what I'd be doing."

The bottom dropped out of Kaneki's mouth. His eye, which was blown wide before, had become a saucer. It took a great deal of self-restraint not to laugh, but Shuu was valiant. He lifted his thumb to his lips instead, darting his tongue out to lick it clean. Kaneki's mouth hung so far open Shuu could see spit collecting between his tongue and teeth. It gave Shuu the idea to make a show of swallowing, resting his thumb teasingly against his lower lip.

"Spicy." 

There was no warning for the way that Kaneki tore Shuu's hand from his mouth, no way to guess the furious way that he brought their lips together. Shuu felt himself gasp and then laugh against Kaneki's tongue; their teeth barely managed to avoid bashing against each other. Even in this sudden burst of passion, Kaneki was mindful of Shuu's legs. Shuu returned the consideration and reached out to grip his right hand on Kaneki's left him, his right telegraphing its way around to squeeze Kaneki's ass. It earned him a groan as Kaneki slips away from his mouth, mouthing against Shuu's left cheek and jaw. 

"Spicy?" he muttered, hands moving down over Shuu's chest with no real purpose as Shuu enjoyed exploring the contours of Kaneki's backside through his trousers. "Of all the -"

"I," and it was partly to stop Kaneki from embarrassing him and partly because he wanted to see the reaction, "want more."

Kaneki convulsed. His nails scraped against Shuu's ribs. It was too hard to be pleasant. Shuu hissed as Kaneki jerked back, his face bright red and expression between shock and apology.

"Sorry," he said, a devastated note that's disproportionate to the situation. "Sorry -"

It was instinct to reach up. To cup Kaneki's good cheek. For a split second, there was something Shuu recognised. It made Shuu lean up even though it put awkward pressure on his thighs. He kissed Kaneki. It wasn't tender, but it wasn't quite the blind plunder of earlier. Shuu swallowed down the apology, nipped his teeth against Kaneki's bottom lip before sucking. A needy sound crawls out, and Kaneki's hands are in Shuu's hair again, fingers tightening and pulling. 

They melded together. Kaneki shifted to place his knees around Shuu's hips, trapping themselves as close together as they could without putting too much pressure on Shuu's legs. It was sloppy and rough when Shuu finally spat on his hand and reached down to pump them together. They didn't think of using oil, and, even if they had, it would have simply added to the mess. It was like, Shuu thinks bizarrely as Kaneki swears against his skin, he had fallen backwards to his youthful fumblings at school.

"Ferns," Kaneki gasped as they lay panting and gross next to each other on the rumpled bed. "I'll never look at ferns the same way again."

Shuu barked out a laugh followed by another. And another. It was all so insane. Next to him, Kaneki chuckled, left hand holding his eyepatch secure on his face. Shuu reached up. Touched his fingers to Kaneki's good cheek. It was a little hollow but so soft.

" _Mon oiseau._ "

Kaneki started to laugh. It was a full sound, warm and whole. It stuttered off as they turned to each at each other in bed. Kaneki's hand was still up over his ruined eye, but, in that moment, it was as if they were completely naked. Kaneki's eye was dark but soft, and his lips and skin were still flushed. He smiled, different from all the others. It looked like how his laugh had sounded just moments before. 

"My fern soldier."

 

It's that moment that Shuu stole and held onto when he was sent back over the Channel. His legs hurt at night and often during the day. Kanae just turned eighteen and had decided to join him since Yuma was due for promotion. Shuu could not protest. It was the law. He could not be selfish and ask Kanae to try for a less dangerous post. It would be unacceptable politically and socially as all the men of age from the Tsukiyama family went to war. It was what was done. It was what Shuu had known was expected of him, even though he'd grown by that point to fully resent it. Kanae was the last of the Rosewald line. Kanae had even less choice than Shuu.

In the month and a half that Shuu waited for Kanae to join him in France, Shuu started escaping more and more often into that memory of lying beside Kaneki in bed. The first few times, it came with arousal and the memory of touch. It helped him sleep when he needed to, although the romantic part of Shuu baulked using the memory like that. After his company went back out to the front, the arousal stopped. It made Shuu so angry that he threw his canteen at the wall, startling Mairo who was on watch. He felt like something had been stolen from him. 

"What -"

"No," Shuu muttered, waving his hand in dismissal. "It's nothing."

He stopped thinking about Kaneki almost completely once Kanae joined them. He couldn't think about Kaneki, couldn't let himself be distracted. The trenches shocked Kanae, but they shocked everyone who hadn't seen them before. For Kanae, though, there was a personal dimension to the shock. 

"You," he said, holding Shuu's trousers the first morning he was in France and had insisted on fulfilling all of his duties, including helping Shuu dress, "lied."

Shuu was in his smallclothes. Kanae could see all of him. His feet with their snarled scars and callused toes and soles. The mottled skin of his legs. It was all cosmetic scarring that caused only minimal stiffness. He was perfectly functional, although unlikely to win any marathons in the future. Shuu knew the pain he felt was all in his head. 

"You promised," Kanae said, and it was high and warbling, "that you would never lie to me."

There was nothing to say. Shuu had lied consistently in his letters home. He'd said that things were hard, of course, but he left out a lot. He didn't talk about the rot or the mud or even complain about the rations. He didn't recount anything he thought would be considered remotely alarming. Even after he was shipped back after being gassed and Matsumae came to him in Glasgow, he plead with her to lie as well. He didn't want to worry anyone. He was lucky, he always stressed. 

"You can't tell," Shuu had whispered as he reached out for his socks, which were in Kanae's hands. "Especially not Father."

"I can't -" Kanae had started, very loud; he'd caught himself, though, as understanding cut across his face. "I can't."

It is not that Mirumo would not listen. Mirumo would, but he wouldn't understand. He would simply hear that Shuu had lied. It was the only thing that Mirumo ever explicitly asked of Shuu.

"You are my son," Mirumo had said, the day that Shuu had been moved from nursery to rooms of his own. "In the absence of your mother, I will love you for both of us. I will never lie to you. Can you promise that you will never lie to me?"

"Yes," Shuu had said, five and eager and adoring and so utterly unaware of how false it would become.

Thus, it wasn't that he stopped thinking about Kaneki consciously. It's more that he couldn't. Kaneki was part of the hundreds of things he was lying about in his daily letters home, which he bundled up at the end of the week and sent along with Kanae's in the post. He didn't forget, of course. There were moments where he would catch himself looking up at the sky not for weather balloons or planes but for birds. He stopped tasting tea and started drinking coffee exclusively because it reminded him of Kaneki. It was silly. They'd only shared a little over four hours together. He didn't even known Kaneki's real name.

It didn't alarm him, however, until he returned to mulling over the memory with an intensity completely devoid of any vestige of passion after Kanae's fingers were shot off and Shuu was alone for two months. Each and every moment he and Kaneki had shared together replayed in his mind's eye until it was more vibrant than gemstones or gold. It looped around, reminding him of the ouroboros. It got to the point that he would think of his time with Kaneki even if he didn't want to. It terrified him that he was so hyper-focused on what was essentially a one-night stand, but it was the only memory he could access when even his extensive childhood fantasy life failed him. 

So, sometime in June 1918, Shuu stopped fantasizing. He simply drifted if he didn't have to be doing anything. He shied away from anything inside of his head that might mean something. He didn't think about Kaneki or birds or myths or even Latin. He stopped keeping a diary, his last entry on the fifteenth of May. He stopped writing music. He stopped feeling his legs. He wrote his fake tales home and filled his reports and wrote condolence letters. He became productive, quiet, and respected. He survived.

Once, when Shuu was twenty-one and at a gentleman's club, he'd boasted he had never been broken before. Now, Shuu is twenty-four. He knows that he is broken. The war did it as it did to so many others. He is not unique. In fact, his greatest lie has become his greatest truth.

He's lucky because he's alive.

 

"I've been -" Kaneki starts before stopping abruptly, clearly startled by Shuu's inquiry; he swallows audibly. "I've been well."

His voice rises awkwardly on the last word. It makes Shuu look up. Back to Kaneki. He has a pencil in his hand angled just above his sketchbook, which is balanced on his knees. His expression as he gazes back at Shuu is a complex, almost troubled thing. His eye flicks back and forth. It's utterly different from his sweeping, bold gaze before.

"It's been a change," he says, quieter.

He looks down. He begins sketching, heels rising off the floor unconsciously to create a slight incline on his tights. Shuu has nothing to add. That is perhaps the only way to describe their lives. It's been a change. He watches Kaneki's hands. The firm grip on the sketchbook with his left. The quick, sure strokes with the right. 

"I," he begins, looking up again and blinking when he finds Shuu is still watching, "am very thankful for your hospitality. The bread this morning--it was very extraordinary."

Small talk. Shuu feels himself blink. He thinks inanely of how Matsumae served them tea and tiny slivers of chocolate back in the living room in Glasgow. Shuu remembers every detail of the plates, pot, cups. The tea was perfectly brewed, a dark amber-brown. The chocolate was wartime bitter but didn't crumble. Kaneki had sucked on his piece. It would have been seductive if his gaze hadn't been so far away.

Back in the present, Shuu feels himself blink again. Kaneki's expression has tightened. His hands are still. He's nervous. Shuu has unnerved him.

"The rye," Shuu says, and he realises belatedly he should have constructed it as a question; he clears his throat. "You liked it?"

It earns him a short nod. A warm smile that twitches slightly at the left edge. Still nervous but trying so hard to hide it. Kaneki had been nervous when they last met, but he had been bold and focused. Shuu had adored that bold determination, perhaps even more than Kaneki's attractive form. The broken pieces of the person that Shuu used to be rattle faintly. It makes his head hurt. 

"Yes," Kaneki says, a little less formal in tone. "It was lovely with honey."

Shuu laughs. It takes him by surprise. It makes him jolt a little, so he claps his hands to control himself. Sit still. Sit up straight. He looks across the room at the bookcase full of his old lesson books. 

"I'm glad," he says because he is. "I saw on the schedule that you will not be staying after tomorrow. If you like, I will have Miss Matsumae prepare you a hamper. You must try her chocolate biscuits. Are you hosting anyone for Christmas? Hogmanay?"

There's a long silence. Shuu forces himself to look back at Kaneki, who stares at him. There's a shadow over Kaneki's eyes. His lips are thin. He looks like he did when he admitted, half-drunk tea in hand, that his injury was incurred in battle not in honourable combat but by friendly fire. Someone on the ground. No one has been able to identify who. 

"They're calling it an accident," Kaneki had said, and there was no hiding his bitterness. "I'll have full pension."

 _As if that means anything_ went unsaid. To see that expression again now: it sucks all the colour out of Shuu's skin. It turns the shrapnel in Shuu's stomach.

"I don't need anything," Kaneki says; his eyes return to his sketchbook, unseeing. "You have been generous enough."

Shuu's nails bite deep into the webbing between his fingers. If he was half the man he's supposed to be, he would stand up. Go to Kaneki. Make him understand. As it is now, Shuu is fairly certain if he attempts to stand, he'll simply fall over.

"I did not mean -"

Kaneki shakes his head. He sets down his pencil and looks up at the ceiling. Shuu watches him breathe in deeply. His chest swells with air, shirt collar rising beneath his jacket. It is not a well-tailored jacket. It looks as if it was tailored for someone a bit broader in the chest and a little smaller in the waist. Perhaps Kaneki has recently been sedate. More likely, Shuu realises belatedly and somewhat embarrassingly, it is secondhand.

"You didn't know," Kaneki mutters, the bitter twist to his lips sadly familiar. "You..."

He looks at Shuu. The pain in his eye is clear even without the thin stretch of his mouth. An attempt at an apology he cannot voice.

"I saw," Kaneki admits, grip shifting on his sketchbook, "in the _Herald_."

Yuma's paper. Shuu waits. Kaneki stares at him. Shuu doesn't understand.

"What about?"

It makes Kaneki's expression falter. "You were in the paper," he specifies, tone rather disbelieving. "It featured you and your cousin's pictures and the details of your service and promotions. The person who wrote it claimed to have been your first batman. You didn't see it?"

Oh. No. Shuu shakes his head. Maybe that's how Yuma got his job at the paper. It doesn't bother Shuu. He knows that Yuma didn't lie, even if he did take advantage of his wartime association with Shuu to get himself a job so quickly after returning. The secrets that Yuma is aware of won't be one he'd consider exposing. It would condemn him and Mairo and anyone else who was complicit in concealing Kanae's identity. Besides, Kanae, Yuma, and Mairo are friends. Shuu knows that they exchange letters much more frequently. It makes sense. Kanae should have people to talk to that aren't Shuu and Matsumae. It's good for him.

"You didn't," Kaneki says, lower than before; it's not disbelieving but disconcerted. "I," and there's a flash of regret in his eye, "got this commission a day after. I thought--well."

If there had not been a war, Shuu would be gaping. He would be offended, first that Kaneki would think he'd snooped around to discover Kaneki's name and secondly that he had taken advantage of what they'd had between them. That Shuu before the war who had cared so much for society niceties and the social game would even have been hurt. He'd have felt that Kaneki was being arrogant to refuse Shuu's generosity out of some idea of pride. That Shuu would have scoffed or told Kaneki to leave or, if he was particularly angry, turned it all around and make it all about Shuu. It is what he had done in his letters to Rize. In previous perceived hurts at school and in university.

Shuu feels tired. 

"I didn't," Shuu says, rather banally.

Kaneki stares at him for a long moment. Shuu stares back. Kaneki sighs. He shakes his head, bangs flopping lightly. He looks back down at his sketchbook. Picks up his pencil. Shuu looks down at his hands. Forces himself to unclench his fingers. His nails have left deep half-moons between his fingers. Some of the skin is torn up in places. Shuu flexes his fingers, watching a few tiny beads of blood surface between his right pinky and ring fingers.

They sit like this for a while. Kaneki works steadily with occasional bursts of furious, uninterrupted scribbling. Shuu's mind wanders, slowly meandering around the edges of his fantasy world. He thinks about Homer's _Iliad_ but only very briefly before his thoughts threaten to turn towards Hector, dragged behind Achilles chariot. Shuu shies away. He thinks about flowers. Blue Egyptian lotus. Rising to the water's surface. He imagines kneeling down to examine them. He imagines putting them in his mouth.

"Tell me," Kaneki's voice filters in, jarring Shuu back into reality, "where are you?"

The sun is starting to crest outside. Shuu blinks rapidly. He shakes his head. It makes him feel dizzy, so he stops. He forces himself to look back at Kaneki. The bitterness from earlier is gone. He watches Shuu, eye wide and searching. It is not judgmental. It is understanding. Kind, even. It makes Shuu's hands tremble before he presses them flat and hard against his thighs. His legs hurt. Kaneki was shot down by friendly fire.

"I -" Shuu starts and it is a croak; he coughs and clears his throat. "I took lessons in this room as a child."

Kaneki looks around the room. At the bookcase full of old lesson books. At the map of the world on the wall that's now painfully outdated. At the desk, the lectern in the corner, the stack of three extra chairs. Shuu feels something cut open inside of his chest. His mouth opens. His tongue wags.

"It was just me. My lessons were in the morning and early afternoon. From when I was four until I was twelve. The youths we had on staff were mostly apprentices. They took lessons at night. After their duties. Regular lessons were four days a week with a test on Friday. Maths, science, history, literature. Latin, Ancient Greek, French, Italian. I had music lessons and fencing and shooting and... other things occasionally outside. Dancing. Elocution."

The last one makes Kaneki laugh. "'People' not 'folk'."

Shuu smiles. He hears Kaneki's pencil scratching furiously. If this is inspiration, then Shuu will have to take it. He does not want to have Kaneki here any longer than Kaneki wants to be. Shuu himself is not used to sitting for so long. It's not good for his legs. They're already somewhat numb. He looks out the window. The sky is bright, but rain mists down in a steady, haphazard spray. It is likely close to lunchtime. Perhaps Shuu should -

There is a polite but firm knock on the door. "Excuse me."

Baron Kamishiro. Shuu looks around just as Kaneki surges to his feet to bow hastily. Kamishiro holds up the hand he must have used to knock on the open door. His lips twitch slightly under his mustache, moving his dour face in what Shuu knows from years of association is an apologetic expression. Kaneki straighten, the tenseness in his back and shoulders not receding at all. The suit jacket really is ill-fitting.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," Kamishiro says very gently, looking briefly over Kaneki before focusing on Shuu. "I only wished to inquire to the young lord's health."

Shuu feels suddenly like crying. It's worrying how intense the feeling is. He knows he's not able to hide it completely. Shuu vehemently hates this person he's become, prone to whiplash moods, imagined pains, and flights of fantasy he can't control.

"Thank you for your kind concern," he says, and thankfully his voice is calm and even, though he doubts his demeanour supports it. "I am much better this morning."

Kamishiro looks at him. Shuu resists the urge to look away. To look at Kaneki. To look out the window. To cry. 

"And your legs?" Kamishiro inquires, still gentle but with his more familiar bluntness hardening the words; he has never been someone to play verbal games. "You were not moving well yesterday."

Kamishiro would know. Despite their difference in station, Mirumo and Kamishiro are best friends, and Shuu grew up regularly interacting with him. Kamishiro taught Shuu how to box and recommended Shuu's favourite shooting teacher. In a lot of ways, he probably saved Shuu's life multiple times during the course of the war. Although Rize and Shuu had never been terribly close, separated by their two year age difference and the gender roles of their positions, they had once been what could be considered confidants. Perhaps that is why they had mucked up their courtship so terribly. They knew each other too well. 

If Kamishiro noticed that Shuu was in pain, he'll have made Mirumo aware. It contradicts everything that Shuu has written home and the little he has said to his father directly. Shuu might be Mirumo's son, but Kamishiro is a man renowned for both his honesty and integrity. The only thing Mirumo has ever asked of Shuu is not to lie.

He remembers, very disturbingly, a figure running ahead of everyone into machine gun fire.

"Thank you," Shuu says, and if it's the wrong tone for the wrong place, he doesn't know, "but I am better today."

He looks away. Out the window. He is a bad liar, but he can't blame himself for that. He tried so hard not to be most of his life. The only thing he's lied about since he realised he needed to were his romantic preferences. Even that he probably only did well because he has never been in love, not truly. He botched his courtship of Rize, but so did she. He's botched things with Kaneki, although this was completely out of his control. It's fine. Shuu will survive. He always does.

"Perhaps," Shuu says because the sun is high outside in the rain, "we should have lunch."

 

Lunch is a very awkward affair. 

It is taken down in the informal dining room. Nagachika joins Shuu, Kaneki, and Kamishiro as does Kanae and Mirumo. Kanae and Shuu caught each other's eyes when Kanae arrived a little damp from coming in from the glasshouses. He sits to Shuu's right. Shuu sits at Mirumo's right, who sits at the head of the table. Kamishiro is directly across from Shuu with Kaneki and then Nagachika. The empty chair on Kanae's right feels like a glaring hole.

There is light conversation. Superficial discussion of the portrait sitting. Even more superficial discussion of further Hogmanay plans. Nagachika turns out to be a talkative and fairly interesting man. He quickly picks up conversations easily and ends up prodding Kaneki into divulging a bit more information about himself than Shuu suspects Kaneki would naturally admit. Kaneki has only just graduated from Glasgow School of Art. He took in a young girl a year ago, too.

"Her father died in the African theatre," Kaneki says, eyes flicking with a now familiar nervousness around the table before returning to his gammon. "Her mother was in the Red Cross. Belgium. We grew up on the same street, so..." he trails off, filling with his utensils awkwardly.

"That's very generous for you," Mirumo says.

Shuu nods. Kaneki says something appropriate. Nagachika and Kamishiro pick up the conversation. Kanae cuts his gammon into smaller and smaller pieces. Shuu avoids his own gammon and tries to excite himself for some of the potatoes. He knows this is probably very tasty. Everything tastes foul. Shuu wishes he could eat lotus. Fall into peaceful apathy. Wrong lotus flowers. Besides, Shuu's life places him more in Odysseus' role, who pulls everyone away from the lotus-eaters. 

He didn't have wife waiting for him at home. He was never good at archery. He's never owned a dog. He's not the type of person to think of building a giant horse.

Shuu's head hurts.

"Kanae," Shuu says; it unfortunately completely interrupts whatever conversation was going, but this has always been Shuu's habit, "do you have any interest watching a portrait session?"

To his credit, Kanae only blinks once before he sits up straight. Rallying. Sometimes, when Shuu was tired and made an exclamation or command out of the blue, it was up to Kanae to translate it for everyone. The only time Kanae failed at this was when Shuu had given his commands one morning in Latin. Kanae's written Latin in more than functional but spoken is another thing altogether. It didn't help that Shuu had had to mumble in the tense early morning hour.

"If it will not disturb Mister Kaneki's work," Kanae says, polite and without any particular character.

"Of course not," Kaneki says, although Shuu notices a barely hidden flicker of something before Kaneki smiles; a pleasant, bland expression that hides emotions perfectly. "I am actually almost completed with the sketches."

"I am eager to see the finished product," Mirumo puts in, which draws Shuu's attention to his father; his expression is similarly pleasant and empty. "I am sorry that you are unable to stay for Hogmanay. Both you and Mister Nagachika must accept a hamper. The whiskey from Mull this season is most pleasing."

Kaneki's expression twists into abject mortification. Thankfully Nagachika picks up, thanking Mirumo humbly and profusely. Kaneki looks at Shuu. Shuu attempts to cut his potatoes only to realise he's diced them all so small they're becoming mash.

Unbidden, Shuu feels himself mentally wandering away. He wonders as he puts an almost mashed piece of potato into his mouth if this is going to be a problem. Kaneki has been commissioned for six portraits. If this is how the first is going to go -

Shuu swallows. It's like attempting to eat smashed slugs. Not that Shuu has ever eaten smashed slugs. He sets his fork and knife down. Reaches for his water and sips it carefully. He resists the urge to swish it around his mouth. He misses the comparative informality of the war and hates himself for it.

Instead, Shuu sets down his glass. He glances over to Kanae, who looks up at him. Kanae's bad hand is folded under the table. Kanae smiles. Shuu smiles back. He always asks so much of everyone. Kanae wants to stay by Shuu's side. Shuu cannot trust himself with Kaneki. Not with how he is.

They just have to grin and bear it.


	4. January - February 1919

**Ken Kaneki** (1900-1982)  
_**The Marquess of Anstruther (II)** _April 1919__

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    __This portrait of Lord Shuu Tsukiyama was the first of two painted over a week that Kaneki spent on the Isle of Bute in April 1919. Based upon corresponding sketches and notes in Kaneki's personal papers, these two portraits were done in a time of ill health for both the Marquess and Kaneki.__
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    __This particular portrait is of interest for its unusual composition. The background is split into odd angles by overlapping ferns. It is the first painting by Kaneki to feature ferns, which became a regular motif of passion and sex in his work. The Marquess is painted in profile, looking away from the viewer and into the ferns. He is at once apprehensive and disconnected; the viewer cannot see what the Marquess is focused on, but it is clear from the set of his mouth that he is wary. This portrait has been interpreted to represent the Marquess and Kaneki's struggles with shell shock, which Kaneki recorded extensively in his diaries and the Marquess admitted to in his memoirs, and strongly implies that Kaneki had feelings for the Marquess, who is the only contemporary figure associated with ferns in his paintings.__
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__Kanae gets extremely drunk on Hogmanay following the news that a new trade arrangement has been made between Tsukiyama Shipping and Washuu Limited's new branch in Munich. He gets drunk not so much because of the news but because he will be expected eventually to travel to manage the agreement. It's a lot of responsibility, which he can handle, but it'll take him away from Shuu for weeks if not months at a time._ _

__"You know," he slurs, good hand gripping Shuu's left sleeve and the damaged hand nursing his champagne, "it's... sad. _Ja_."_ _

__He drains the glass. Shuu reaches around them and takes it away to set on the railing of the billiard room above the ballroom. Music and voices trickle up. Kanae blinks owlishly at him, lips parted and eyes luminous. For a moment, the world seems to ripple. Shuu can almost smell the mud. It makes him reach up. Cover Kanae's hand on his sleeve with his own._ _

__"I'll talk to Papa," Shuu murmurs._ _

__He isn't drinking except the requisite toasts. It's partly because Shuu is well-aware that his self-control hangs by a very thin thread. It's also because Shuu can barely stomach the blandest of food let alone something as rough as liquor. Shuu wonders if he'll ever have a taste for drink again. He's begun to lose hope for food._ _

__"Lieutenant," Kanae says, a slip up, before turning to lean away and throw up._ _

__It's the first time that Shuu has seen Kanae drunk. He's usually extremely careful about keeping his head. He has to be. Kanae groans, wavering. Shuu glances back over his shoulder; there's no one in the open door. The party remains downstairs. He leans down to sling Kanae's right arm and hand around his shoulders._ _

__Kanae groans, although he moves with Shuu. "Your legs -"_ _

__Shuu makes a shushing sound. It's not comfortable for him to do this, but he's had to do many more less comfortable things just over a month and a half ago. So did Kanae. They might have spent most of their lives separated by age and station, not to mention the tragedy of the von Rosewald, but they grew up together over the past year._ _

__Down below, the opening lines of "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" drifts up. Shuu pauses, looking unbidden to the sky. It's not the season for bluebirds. He shakes his head, suddenly furious with himself. Kanae groans against his side._ _

__"Is something -"_ _

__"No," Shuu says, moving again; angry tears prick at the edges of his vision. "It's nothing."_ _

__He doesn't take Kanae to either of their rooms. It would be too easy to find them. Instead, Shuu takes Kanae to his mother's conservatory where no one ever goes. The room is cold and they haven't brought a light. All the covers that Shuu pulls from the trunk beneath the window smell faintly of old perfume and talc. Kanae lies down. Shuu guides him to rest his head on Shuu's chest, adjusting the blankets around them._ _

__Kanae cries. Soft, wretched sobs. Shuu threads his fingers through Kanae's hair. He hums a little, not paying attention to what songs they are or if they're songs at all. Eventually Kanae dozes off and Shuu listens to him breathe. A steady, deep sound just below a snore. It's a comforting sound._ _

__At some point, Shuu dozes off. He sleeps better than he has since arriving on Bute. Maybe better than he has since leaving France. Shuu and Kanae had spent three nights in Paris before traveling back to London. They'd danced and sang along with everyone else because the war was over and that's what was to be done. They cried, but everyone was crying, especially since most people were drinking. They were going home. Those were happy tears._ _

__"You shouldn't," Mirumo's voice filters in, through the foggy half-dream of Paris, "sleep on the floor."_ _

__Shuu opens his eyes. There's a skylight in the conservatory. The sun is out. The sky is blue. It looks like it snowed in the night._ _

__"Shuu."_ _

__He looks to his right. Mirumo sits in one of the two armchairs. He looks down at Shuu, face placid and calm. Shuu blinks. Looks away. Around the room._ _

__"Papa," he says, and his voice feels very small and yet very loud, "where's Kanae?"_ _

__"Matsumae took him to his room," Mirumo says, smiling slightly. "We wondered where the two of you had gotten to."_ _

__It makes Shuu smile. That's exactly what Mirumo used to say when he heard about Shuu dragging Kanae along on various escapades. Shuu had already been at Eton when Kanae joined the household, but he'd enjoyed having a captive audience when he was back home. Kanae was more than willing to go anywhere and do anything Shuu wanted to do. They used to go hiking and swim down in the river. It was a wonderful time of youth, innocent and carefree. Looking back, perhaps that was inappropriate, given their stations and situations. Shuu has never been a good judge of that._ _

__"You know," Mirumo says, lower than usual, "when Kanae was born, we thought of matching the two of you."_ _

__It doesn't surprise Shuu. He sits up, woolen blankets twisted around him. He reaches up. Runs his hand through his hair. It feels gross. He needs to wash._ _

__"That time has passed," Mirumo says._ _

__"Why," Shuu asks, looking at his fingers on the blankets, "are you telling me this?"_ _

__Silence. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He looks to his father, who watches him steadily. For a long moment, they are still._ _

__"I'm proud of you."_ _

__Shuu blinks. He can see his father's eyes clearly through the thick glasses. Staring straight at him. Seeing him. Shuu's heart stutters. He feels, suddenly, like when he was five and Mirumo would stop in on one of his lessons. He didn't stay in nursery long enough to have clear memories of being presented to his father, but he remembers clearly how his father would say _I'm proud of you_ if he could report perfect marks. To hear and feel this now: there is none of the ecstatic rush that used to accompany the words. Shuu feels frozen. Frightened. Monstrous. _ _

__"I am," Mirumo says._ _

__He stands up. He approaches Shuu. Lifts his hand and rests his hand in Shuu's hair. It's exactly what he did when he was most pleased with Shuu, which was usually regarding piano, Latin, and French. Shuu has no idea what to do. His hair is dirty. He's very aware that Mirumo can tell he's about to cry._ _

__"You've done everything that has been asked of you," Mirumo smiles, soft and warm and _Papa_. "And more. I didn't tell you because I wanted you to make your own decisions, but after you... " _ _

__Mirumo's face falters. Cracks. It's a cliff._ _

__"When you were in Glasgow, I was tempted ask you not to go back."_ _

__It draws an ugly sound out of Shuu. He never admitted it, but a selfish part of him had considered it if very briefly. He'd been injured just badly enough that he could have asked to be transferred to non-combatant. He'd thought about it on the ship back over the Channel, drifting in and out of consciousness. Once he'd recovered enough of himself, he'd been sickened by the thought. He couldn't. He didn't want to be branded a coward. He'd put off going to war until it was impossible. He had to recover. He had to return to the Front. It was for the good of the family. That is what Shuu had decided, the first night he lay alone in the private hospital room, wide-awake and listening to the other patients and building groan. He'd hoped to tell Mirumo in person, but his father hadn't visited. Busy, Matsumae had explained, what with the war wreaking havoc on business. Shuu had smiled. Nodded. He understood._ _

__He hadn't understood at all._ _

__"That is why I didn't visit you," Mirumo says, and Shuu realises that he's dipped forward, hands over his face; his father's hand rests so very carefully on the crown of his head. "You made the right decision, but I shouldn't have stayed away. I realised my mistake after you went back out and your letters changed. You weren't lying, but I know you were telling stories. I didn't point it out. I should have. I wasn't a good father to you."_ _

__That makes Shuu look up. Reach out. He grips his father's waistcoat like he used to when he was a child. Mirumo looks down at him. He looks so sad._ _

__"No," Shuu says, and the only difference is that he cannot slide down to kneel before his father; he's already sitting on the floor. "Please, Papa, that's not true. You've always -"_ _

__Mirumo kneels down. It makes something in Shuu contract and shatter. The father never kneels before the son. For that to happen, the son must either be dead or ready to succeed the father. Did Shuu actually die in the war? Is this Hell?_ _

__"It is true," Mirumo whispers before leaning up to kiss Shuu's brow._ _

__He pulls back. Stands up. Shuu lets him. Looks up at him. Mirumo's hands are at his sides. A deep furrow splits his brow. His hair is completely silver, lines in his forehead and starting around his lips. Shuu had not noticed how old his father has become. Mirumo's lips move. He does not lie._ _

__"I'm sorry."_ _

__Matsumae comes to Shuu a long time after. The conservatory has gone dark and cold, but Shuu hasn't moved. She hovers with a lamp in hand. It casts shadows throughout the room._ _

__"Master Shuu," she murmurs, and it is a gentle, coaxing tone. "I've started the fire in your room."_ _

__He ends up in bed, bundled up in winter wools and a hot water bottle. He hadn't realised that he was shivering so badly. Matsumae pours him a cup of that strange tea she gave him when Kaneki's appearance shocked him in December. It helps to calm him enough to stop shaking, but it also makes him so dizzy that he has to lie down. Matsumae sits on the side of his bed and strokes his hair. Like she used to after he woke from nightmares._ _

__Shuu spends a couple days like that. Matsumae doesn't give him any more of the tea, but Shuu is tired. He sleeps, waking only when he must. He passes up the trays of coffee and food that are brought up. He turns down the day schedule and refuses dinner. He's tired. He just wants to bathe and sleep. He wishes everyone would leave him alone._ _

__Kanae comes on the third day of this. Crawls up onto Shuu's bed and sits until Shuu rolls over to face him. He looks down at Shuu. There's shadows under his eyes. A thin set to his mouth._ _

__"Kanae," Shuu says, a hoarse, disused noise._ _

__They don't talk after that. Because they're in Shuu's bed, they don't smoke. Shuu remembers, unbidden, when Kanae was twelve and began to show signs of puberty. The next couple of years had been tense. Not because of Kanae but because they didn't know how much Kanae would show. The von Rosewald had been shapelier than the Tsukiyama, and there had been a shared fear that Kanae would take after his name more strongly. Kanae stopped growing at fourteen and never filled out in the way some do. It had been a relief, but they had stopped going swimming. They didn't run in the fields. For a while, there had grown a barrier. The war broke it again. They're as they once were now._ _

__Shuu must have wandered off because Kanae's voice surprises him enough to shift. Kanae looks down at him. His hair falls into his eyes. He needs a haircut._ _

__"Did you hear what I said?"_ _

__Shuu shakes his head. Kanae sighs, leaning forward to prop himself on his elbows. He grew up hard. All angles of lean muscle and bone. Even if Kanae wanted to, there is no life for him under the name his parents gave him. Kanae went to war. He was wounded. He came back. He killed._ _

__It's the killing, Shuu realises now, that set them apart from everyone else. Shuu doesn't know what it is, if it's something about their shared blood or something to do with their upbringing, but both he and Kanae are extremely proficient in killing. It doesn't bother them. They suffer no nightmares of the men they've shot or stabbed. They never woke screaming from those sorts of memories. In fact, Kanae never woke screaming from dreams. It made sense. He hadn't screamed when his fingers were shot off. He'd choked, collapsing in the mud. Protecting his chest._ _

__"I will not be going to Munich," Kanae says, reaching out with his bad hand and twisting his fingers around Shuu's right thumb. "Thank you."_ _

__Shuu closes his fingers. Carefully because Kanae's bad hand often aches. He is of the same mould as Shuu. There is nothing they can do to change that. They do not want to change that. It is their selfishness. It is all they can call their own._ _

__The next day, when Matsumae comes to wake him, Shuu gets up. He drinks coffee. Forces himself to eat bread. He reads the schedule and asks to be brought copies of the business his father will be attending to in the day and a tray of stationary. He asks for Matsumae to schedule a tailoring for spring clothing. He writes to Mairo to recommend fabrics. He reads over several financial and personnel reports. They need to hire a new groundskeeper. He notates that he would like to sell his Mayfair property. He does not intend to go back to London to socialise any time soon. The Kensington property will do._ _

__He writes, as the sun begins to set, to arrange for the next sitting with Kaneki._ _

__

__In the three weeks after arranging a week and a half stay for Kaneki to do two of the commissioned portraits over Easter, Shuu decides to renovate his mother's conservatory._ _

__He doesn't fully understand why he decides this. Matsumae and Kanae both give him odd looks when he announces it at breakfast. Shuu has been shut in his rooms a week at that point. He's refused Matsumae's suggestion that he see the family doctor twice. There's no cause for concern. He's not physically ill. Mirumo has not been by. Shuu does not think about his father at all._ _

__"Why?" Kanae asks, unconsciously reaching up and scratching awkwardly with his bad hand at his shirt collar._ _

__"According to the electrical installation plans," Shuu says, and he motions to where he's left the papers at his writing desk, which has been moved into his bedroom, "it will be one of the first rooms fully converted. It's a very nice room. It should see a bit more use."_ _

__Matsumae and Kanae exchange a look before Matsumae clears her throat. "Have you discussed this yet with your father?"_ _

__"Papa won't mind," Shuu says, probably far too loud._ _

__Mirumo says absolutely nothing on the subject, although Shuu sends him two memos, one regarding redecoration and the other regarding commissioning specialised lighting fixtures. Shuu says nothing. He hears Kanae and Matsumae murmuring to each other when they think he's asleep. Shuu pretends to sleep a lot these days._ _

__It's not that Shuu is unaware of the oddness of his behaviour. Before the war, he was vivacious to the point of being uncontrollable. During breaks from university, he would go down to the house in Mayfair that Mirumo had bought him and throw rowdy, bawdy parties. At university, he'd been involved in so many different things, overindulging in everything he could. There was so much to experience, he'd thought. So many interesting people to meet, so many interesting things to do. The world was his oyster and he could do no wrong._ _

__Now, Shuu has elected to shut himself into his personal quarters. It is odd, but it's not like he's locked everyone out. Kanae and Matsumae are very welcome as are the rest of the staff. His father would be welcome, if Mirumo would visit, which he doesn't. That's fine. He's busy. Shuu is busy, too. He's looking after house affairs and moving unneeded property. He hadn't made an appearance in society since Hogmanay, but there's a lot to be done at home now that the war is over. Shuu is occupied over Easter. He doesn't have any compulsion to go dancing. His legs hurt enough as it is._ _

__Constantly in the back of his mind, the Peace Conference looms. It's just begun in Paris. Shuu knows he is expected to say something about this. Most certainly, he'll be asked his opinions incessantly at any function outside of the house. Someone will likely ask him write a book. He's suited for this sort of job due to his station, his service record, and his ability with languages. Yuma has written him a letter, asking very politely and almost apologetically if he would be willing to write a series of commentary pieces for the _Herald_ come spring when the current opinion writer will be leaving. Shuu agreed because it'll be good for Yuma's standing with the paper. To give up to date commentary, however, Shuu will need to at least go to Edinburgh or London. Ideally, he should travel to Paris. _ _

__The last time Shuu was in Paris was in mid-November. Just over two months ago. At the end of the war._ _

__The night after he receives and responds to Yuma's letter, Shuu dreams of being gassed. His screaming wakes the entire household. Matsumae, Kanae, Eliza, and several others are already in his room when Kanae punches him awake, just like he used to when the whistle would go off. Kanae punches him again because he keeps screaming. Shuu manages to stop only to begin crying. He shakes uncontrollably. He's inconsolable._ _

__"I'm sorry," he whispers, tucked up against the headboard of his bed with his hands over his head. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm _sorry_ -"_ _

__He doesn't know why he's like this. It's frightening, especially the loss of control. He spends hours after Matsumae and Kanae finally heed his pleas to be left alone missing the war with such fervour the logical part of him is afraid he's losing his mind. It makes him angry in a strange way. Why now? Why not during the war? It was almost acceptable then._ _

__As soon as that last thought occurs, Shuu bursts out laughing. It's loud and harsh, and it scares him so badly that he curls back into a ball and resumes shaking uncontrollably. He scrambles around within his head, trying to find something, anything to focus on that isn't the war. Isn't home. Isn't here. Isn't now._ _

__He ends up thinking of Kaneki. It's not the Kaneki whom he met in the ferns but the Kaneki that painted him in December. He thinks of the ill-fitting clothes, the fact that Kaneki is taking care of a young girl. Woman, really; Fueguchi Hinami is fifteen. He thinks about the way they stopped conversing after Kanae joined the afternoon session. It was not a complete silence. Kanae had read out the Latin in the volume of _Georgics_ , and Shuu had offered translations. Kaneki had participated after this went on for half an hour, giving his opinions on word choice. It had been companionable, if remote. The afternoon had passed pleasantly by._ _

__Shuu rolls over. Presses his hands against the headboard. He falls asleep, thinking about sacrificing goats to Bacchus._ _

__

__February comes in. With it comes the family doctor._ _

__Shuu understands. He is not unaware that he has been well past eccentric since the start of the year. He does not protest having to sit through being poked and prodded. He answers the slew of questions. He doesn't flinch at the way the old man's face twists in disgust and horror at the scarring on his legs._ _

__"A shame," the old man mutters, reaching out and rapping Shuu's right knee to test the reflex; it's fine. "What a shame."_ _

__He doesn't make Shuu come out of his room. Instead, he steps out and talks to Mirumo, who has apparently been standing out in the reception room. Shuu resolutely does not listen. He doesn't want to know what is said._ _

__"You are," Kanae says with no little irony to his tone, "hale and hearty. You simply need the sun and to eat meat."_ _

__That explains why the dinner tray that Matsumae brought up consists of Sunday roast. The beef smells utterly nauseating. Shuu sits on the end of his bed, staring at the tray as if he can will it to disappear._ _

__"I take it," he says, his voice raspy from disuse, "that no one mentioned I've been in here for a month."_ _

__Kanae just looks at him. Shuu laughs a couple short, dark barks. They sit in silence until Shuu pushes himself up. He sits down at his writing desk with the dinner tray and two plates. He and Kanae eat in silence until Matsumae comes up bearing tea. She serves them and then makes a cup for herself, sitting by the window._ _

__Shuu leaves his rooms the next day. It's not because of the doctor. It's not because he wants to interact with anyone. He gets up, dresses himself somewhat awkwardly as nothing quite fits aside from socks and shoes, and walks out. He walks down to the music room and starts a fire in the hearth. He looks around the room, stomach twisting around the emptiness that settles there. It is very early in the day, so it is still dark out. Shuu moves to sit at the piano. He looks around again before lifting his hands. He taps out Chopin on the lid, letting the music play inside of his head._ _

__He thinks about when he was nine and Japan went to war with Russia. Shuu's entire world up until that point had been this house and these grounds. Even Glasgow and Edinburgh had been far-flung lands. Despite all his lessons on the family's origins in Japan, he'd thought of it as well as Russia as somewhere very, very far away. Nine-year-old Shuu had believed everything his tutors, Papa, and Kamishiro taught him. Even overhearing from Mirumo and Kamishiro and occasionally others that Japan and Russia were at war, he hadn't thought much about it. He was more interested in what they were to have to dinner or if Mirumo had brought him a new adventure book when he came back from business._ _

__Japan won the war with Russia when Shuu was eleven, and that's when he noticed something changed. He hadn't known exactly what it was because he was eleven and his education was focused on readying him for Eton, but there were murmurs at parties. Some guests stopped coming. In late 1905, Kamishiro visited for a week and brought Rize. It was the first time that Shuu met her. She was nine, and she seemed to be afraid of something that Shuu didn't understand and she couldn't explain._ _

__It was also the only time that Shuu knows of Kamishiro and Mirumo fighting._ _

__"I invite you into _my_ house -"_ _

__Something smashed. Shuu jumped as Rize clasped her hands over her mouth. They were hiding in the servant passage that led up to the main study. Later, Shuu would lean that Mirumo broke a paperweight that had been a courting gift from his mother._ _

__"You can't keep the boy in the dark!" Kamishiro shouted and Shuu put his hands up over his own mouth to stop the whimpering that wanted to escape. "You've kept him bound up here, but he's got to grow up some day -"_ _

__"Don't lecture me how to raise my son," Mirumo hissed, somehow as loud as Kamishiro's shouting. "Your daughter -"_ _

__"Don't you dare."_ _

__Thundering silence. Shuu bit the meat of his thumb. Next to him, Rize was backed against the wall. She looked at the floor._ _

__"You can't," Kamishiro said, and his voice was quieter but no less vicious. "Fill his head with as many stories as you like, but it won't change a thing. No matter what bloody titles we hold, we are -"_ _

__"I know," Mirumo said, and the heavy resignation in his tone was the scariest thing there. "I'm not a fool."_ _

__The next day, Mirumo took Shuu outside. It was a cold but clear day. They walked down to the stables and went riding. It was unusually silent as they passed down to the river and rode beside it. It was the first time Shuu did not know what to say to his father. It was the first time his father did not guide him._ _

__When they reached the wide but shallow pool that Shuu and Kanae would come to favour for swimming, Mirumo halted his horse. Shuu did as well, watching his father watch the still water. His glasses weren't as thick in those days. He could see his father's eyes._ _

__"Papa loves you," Mirumo said; he had told Shuu this more times than they could count, but it was different now. "But there are many people in this world. Some are good, and some are not. No one is the same. Do you understand?"_ _

__Shuu hadn't, not really, but he'd nodded all the same. It had seemed like such an obvious statement. Of course there were good people and bad people, and no one was going to be like the rest. Mirumo smiled before turning his horse to retrace their ride. Shuu followed without hesitation._ _

__Now, as Shuu rises from the piano to prod the fire back to life as the sun attempts to show itself outside, he thinks he understands what Papa was trying to get at. It's the same reason that Shuu was given troublemakers in 1916. Why his platoon was overwhelmingly made up of British Japanese. It's why they were sent out immediately to the front lines on the Somme. It's why he was under the command of Big Madam and why he and his men were sent out again and again with less rest than some other platoons. It's a large reason why, when Kanae joined them, no one looked as closely as they could have._ _

__Shuu rises from the fire. Puts the poker back in the stand. He looks around the room, hoping it'll be different in the light of day. It isn't. He looks down at his hands. At the calluses that are thick and deep. The scars on his knuckles and right hand. Shuu breathes in very deep._ _

__Kanae's violin and stand are gone._ _

__

__The glasshouses are cool and very quiet. Shuu stands for a moment inside the doors. He looks around. The bushes are dormant, and there's only a few winter blooms in the window boxes. It is not yet time for the Daphne to bloom._ _

__Shuu takes a deep breath. "Kanae?" he calls, and it is not loud enough to carry; he clears his throat with a cough. "Kanae?"_ _

__There's a rustling. Kanae stands up at the back of the glasshouse, obviously surprised. He hurries over, blinking rapidly even as his eyes flicker back and forth. Taking in Shuu. He's forgotten to set down the spade. It trails fertiliser behind him._ _

__"Master Shuu," Kanae says, stopping in front of Shuu and looking up with huge eyes. "You left your room."_ _

__It's stating the obvious. Shuu nods despite this. Kanae blinks again. Shifts his hold on the spade._ _

__"You're out early."_ _

__Kanae stares for a long moment before shrugging. He looks back at the plants. The glasshouse has a slightly damp, almost mossy smell. It's not muddy nor musty. It is, Shuu realises with a sudden flash of insight, absolutely nothing like anything they encountered during the war._ _

__"I like to garden in the morning," Kanae says, very softly._ _

__He doesn't look back at Shuu. They stands together for a long time. Above them, it's begun to rain again. The rain hitting the glass is a familiar pattering. The background noise to Shuu's childhood._ _

__"I went," Shuu says, equally softly, "to the music room in the night."_ _

__Kanae looks back. He doesn't try to smile. The shadows in his eyes and his cheeks are stark. His hair has grown out. It's wavy at this length, falling in loose around his face. The old gardening clothes hang around him like convalescent blues._ _

__"I," Kanae says, lips twisting and voice breaking, "made Matsumae cry."_ _

__Shuu reaches out. Kanae steps forward. Once. Twice. Shuu puts his hand on the back of Kanae's head. Kanae fists his hands in Shuu's coat. Rests his forehead against Shuu's chest._ _

__"I'm sorry," Kanae whispers, a jagged thing._ _

__"I know," Shuu murmurs, a muttering. "I know."_ _

__No one is the same._ _


	5. February - April 1919

Excerpt from _Lucky Together: Memoirs of a Thousand Yards on the Western Front_ by M.I. Yuma (c.1879-1948), published posthumously in 1993: 

     I hated him at first.

    I was, of course, predisposed to hate him. The Lieutenant came to us freshly graduated from university. He was a sheltered thing, that strange balance of handsome and pretty and physically strong from a regular diet of football and rugby. He wasn't so sheltered as to still think this was all going to be that jolly old romp that so many people started thinking the war was going to be. He was eccentric, enjoying his languages and poems, and it took us all a while in the beginning to figure out if he could even speak plain English.

    He could, of course. He could do a lot of things. He was strong, as I mentioned before, and loud and very quick to learn. There was a bizarre sort of kindness to him that I didn't understand until his beloved cousin joined us. He reminded me a little of one of those heroes in tall tales, except he'd been cast in the wrong role in the wrong story. His should have been a comedy where, at the end at least, all is well. Ours was a tragedy. There's no denying that.

    The Lieutenant won't like me saying it, but he flourished in the war the way few men did. Some who are like him drink up the war and become it. The Lieutenant was just obtuse enough he didn't become it. Rather, every time the war managed to mark him, he remoulded himself to keep from becoming it. After he was gassed, I was sure he wouldn't come back. What sane person would? But he did, and he asked for me and Mairo, and he was so sincerely happy to see us when he arrived back in France that it broke my heart.

    I'll never forget what he said when we were shipped back out to the front. He was moving a little slower than he used to, and he'd grown lean in a way he'd remain the rest of his life. A part of me will die wondering what doctor allowed him to come back.

    "I'm so glad you're here!" he said in his typical overenthusiastic but utterly sincere way; his smile didn't reach his eyes any longer, but that was to be expected. "I think we are lucky together. If there's the three of us--and Kanae, when he comes--it'll be alright at the end of the day."

    Mairo laughed at him. I felt like kissing him. The Lieutenant was a good man. It just took me a while to recongise it.

 

February passes in increments. 

Shuu is not well. He never pretended to be consciously, but there's a fine line between denial and delusion. No one says anything to him, not even Kanae, but Shuu is aware that the month he spent shut up in his rooms was delusional. Not so bad that an actual doctor who would understand the situation had to be brought in, but that is a fine line, too. Shuu guesses, in a low internal voice that sounds and feels like mud, if Mirumo was more interested in him, Shuu would probably be in hospital in Edinburgh right now.

It's not a fair assessment. Mirumo is interested in him. In so many ways, everything that Mirumo does is and always has been for Shuu. It doesn't mean that Mirumo understands his son. It doesn't mean that Shuu understands his father. They have always been such different people. Shuu has now realised that this is not going to change.

This, rather than all the news from the Peace Conference and the goings-on in the house, is what makes Shuu's mood fluctuate like a pendulum on a sinking ship. In the middle of February, Yuma telegrams Shuu about the proposed racial equality clause. It does not ask for Shuu's opinion; it reads like an alarm. Kanae, who had gone down alone to retrieve their mail from Rothesay, bites his lip as Shuu gazes at the message, which is long for a telegram. 

"He must be doing well," Kanae says at length, looking away and to the fire. "To afford such a long message."

Shuu nods. He sets it on his writing desk, which has been moved back out into his reception room. He looks out the window. There's a faint flurry of snow. It'll turn to slush as soon as it hits the ground. He turns back to his desk. Glances at Kanae.

"He risks a lot," he says, a muttering that he suspects he'll never get rid of, "sending a message like this."

Kanae looks at him. He is sitting on the closer of the two couches to the fire. He licks his lips.

"You and he are close."

It's true, but Shuu knows what Kanae is edging around. He feels his lips twist. He shakes his head.

"But not like that."

The tension eases out of Kanae. He nods. Shuu turns his attention back to his desk, reaching out to extract an envelope and writing paper. Kanae clinks about with the coffee pot, refilling their cups. It is such a familiar routine that it takes Shuu by surprise when Kanae speaks again.

"Why not?"

Shuu blinks. His pen hovers over the ink blotter. Drips. Shuu looks to Kanae, who has settled back into the couch with a cup. There's a strange look to Kanae's eyes. It's not unrecogniseable, but it isn't an expression that Shuu is used to seeing on Kanae's face.

"Yuma is an attractive man," Kanae says, plain and blunt because Shuu has been staring for too long. "He's the type you favoured in the past."

Heat. Shuu looks hastily away, setting his pen down before he makes a mess. He clears his throat. Fiddles with a fold of the blanket over his lap. He coughs. Once. Twice. It doesn't make him feel any less flustered.

Kanae coughs as well, but it's clearly to hide a laugh. "Or was he too young?"

Shuu is on fire. He reaches up and threads his fingers through his fringe. It's his most obvious tell. It helps to hide his face.

"I thought you didn't know about that."

A snorting cough. "You're so obvious," Kanae says, teasing but not unkind. "Mooning over Mister Yoshimura."

Shuu buries his face in his hands. Kanae snorts again before giving into laughter. It is unwise to speak, but Shuu is not a wise man.

"I was a boy."

"You've mooned over him every Hogmanay I've lived here," Kanae points out. "Even this one. You smiled when you greeted him."

It elicits a groan. That means Shuu hadn't managed to smile properly when greeting anyone else. He had suspected that he was poor company at Hogmanay, even though he had tried his best to feel interested in the chatter and partook briefly in entertaining at the piano. But, as Kamishiro had gone home after Christmas, Shuu had only felt honestly happy to interact with Yoshimura whom Shuu hadn't seen since going to war. To know that, despite the man's business difficulties and some scandal regarding his daughter, he was still very much himself had been a relief.

"I don't..." Shuu mumbles, resting his elbows on his thighs and his forehead in the palms. "I am no longer a child." 

Kanae snorts but doesn't say anything more. After a long time, Shuu straightens up. Kanae has a book open on his lap. Shuu shifts in his seat to pick up his coffee cup. He sips it. It's starting to go cold. He sets it down and turns back to his writing desk. Picks up his pen.

The truth is that Yoshimura is probably the first person that Tsukiyama remembers finding attractive. Yoshimura is one of the family's main business managers, so Shuu has known him for as long he can remember. He'd always found Yoshimura fascinating, if only because he seemed old and wise. Yoshimura had known Shuu's grandfather and was a figure from both Mirumo and Kamishiro's childhoods. Shuu, in his sheltered, boyhood days, lapped up even the scantest of stories about anything he didn't already know. Yoshimura, who was very patient and consistently humoured Shuu's incessant questions, was like a god. It was from that idealisation that his boyhood crush grew. 

It is, Shuu realises now, not a mature love that he harbours for Yoshimura. It's very much the same feelings of warmth and admiration that made his stomach flutter and face flush when he was eight or nine. Not many people are able to put up with Shuu. He's too intense, Matsumae had once tried to explain as gently as possible. He doesn't do thing by halves, and he has a hard time figuring out when to stop once he gets started. Yoshimura's calm, unfailing warmth was something that Shuu has never encountered from anyone else outside of his family.

"Are you afraid," Shuu says, startling Kanae from his reading, "that I'll act on it?"

Kanae blinks several times rapidly. "No," he says, frowning deep enough his eyebrows start to draw together. "Even when you were away, you never caused the family any trouble. We never had to worry about you."

Despite himself, this surprises Shuu. He looks down at the letter he was writing to Yuma. It only contains three sentences:

    Thank you for your timely message. I am following the conference's events closely. From my point of view, it appears a simple request, but its nature is complicated.

He sets down his pen again. Sits back in his chair and massages his temples. Another headache. Kanae shifts on the couch.

"Would you like me to call for Matsumae?"

Shuu feels his lips twist in a grimace. "No," he mutters; he stands up, ignoring the blanket that falls on the floor. "I'm going to lie down."

He's fairly certain that if Matsumae was to be called, she'd brew some of the odd tea. It does make physical pain subside, but Shuu hates the dizziness that accompanies it. Unless he's hysterical, Shuu would prefer not to drink it whatever it is. 

Kanae brings him a dark, cool cloth to put over his eyes. Shuu holds it with both of his hands, his head pounding. It sounds like mortar fire. Kanae comes and goes. There's faint noises around Shuu. Matsumae's familiar touch takes the cloth away to be replaced by another. 

"Mas--"

"Just water," Shuu says, although it makes his head hurt even more. "Nothing else."

She draws away. There's inaudible sounds. A touch to his cheek. Unmistakably Kanae's. The bad hand. The water is lukewarm so not to shock the system. Shuu lies back, curling onto his side with the cloth pressed over his eyes.

There's a soft touch to his hair. Matsumae. Her voice. Shuu can't hear her over the mortar fire.

He folds into himself. 

He goes away.

 

There is only one person that Shuu dreams of killing.

It was a French soldier. A private. Young and still with spots on his face. Shuu came upon him in Ginchy. Or, more exactly, stumbled into him. For a moment, their eyes met. His intestines were on and under Shuu's boots. His entire lower torso was gone. A tank must have run over him. 

The soldier's lips parted. Blood bubbled up through them. 

" _Aidez-moi._ "

Shuu leaned down. Picked up the man's pistol. He leveled it. Pulled the trigger. He didn't think. He couldn't.

When Yuma came, drawn by the sound, he took one look at the scene and threw up. He knew what had happened. Even though Shuu had put the man's pistol back down, it was impossible to mistake it. He helped Shuu find the man's identification, and they marked the body on the casualty map to be picked up. The burial team would come along and take care of the rest. Just like everyone else who they found, identified if possible, and marked.

The relationship between him and Yuma changed after that. Before, Yuma had been a good soldier, but his attitude had always bordered on insubordinate. Serving under someone over a decade younger than him and so obviously inexperienced had rankled. Their relationship had improved once Shuu had seen battle for the first time and was apparently not quite as insufferable as his initial impression made him out to be, but it was that ally soldier that Shuu shot in instinctive pity that made Yuma want to serve under him. If Yuma had told, Shuu would have been court-martialed. 

"It's comforting," Yuma said because that night Shuu woke him for the first and only time with his distress, "to know I'm under a commander whose heart is strong enough for that."

Shuu remembers trying to laugh but choking instead. Yuma offered him water, which he drank gladly. He had a strong heart. It made him a good commander. Yuma treated him with respect after that, and the rest of the platoon followed suit, although they didn't know the details of what had passed between their commander and sergeant. It was Yuma who helped medical cut his clothes away when he was gassed. Shuu honestly has very little recollection of that aside from Yuma's face and one conversation.

"Your girl," Shuu said, delusional in some way that was either simply the pain or the entire situation. "I want to buy your catering when you marry your girl."

Yuma laughed. He choked a little. He was crying. 

"You stupid boy," he wept, forgetting himself as someone shouted over them. "Stupid, beautiful boy."

It's those words that kept Shuu from giving up as he was shipped back over the Channel. He didn't think of much in the beginning, except that he didn't want to go back and Yuma's words. In pain and uncertain of the future in a way he had never been before, Shuu had clung to that idea of beauty. 

It's an idea that Shuu grew up hearing brandished about like air. He had thought himself, like his father and grandfather before, as a connoisseur of beauty. But, sitting up in the hospital bed with Matsumae standing with her hand over her mouth, Shuu knew this was not beautiful. This was stupid. Gas was stupid. The war was stupid. But Yuma had seen him at his very worst and called him stupid but also beautiful. Yuma wasn't a liar. His inability to lie was the reason he ended up Shuu's batman. So that is what Shuu took away, consumed and drummed into every ridge and dip of scar tissue: 

He was beautiful.

It is probably the great reason why he risked what he did when he met Kaneki in the Kibble Palace. Shuu hadn't really wanted to have sex. He hadn't found Kaneki earth-shatteringly attractive. More than anything else, Shuu had been unsure, unsteady, and terribly lonely. It was a stupid thing to do, hooking up with someone he knew nothing about. But Kaneki had matched him in the dance, the tiny, tentative overtures. They'd fumbled together, stilted and scared and stupid. It made them honest. It made them, with all the things they'd already lost, feel whole.

"You know," Kaneki had said after they'd both cleaned up and redressed, "if one of us was a lady, we could write poems to each other."

Shuu laughed, warm and full. He was sitting on the side of the bed, running his fingers through his hair. Kaneki chuckled a little, too, clearly enjoying watching him.

"Do you write poetry?"

It make Kaneki flush a little. He looked down, fingers drifting up to rub his chin.

"No," he murmured, self-depreciatingly. "I'm just paint a little bit."

Back then, Shuu had taken Kaneki's words at face value. He had to as there were no reason that either of them would see each other again. He'd smiled and hadn't inquired any further. He knows now that Kaneki lied to him. It doesn't make him angry. It was safer that way. It wasn't perfect, but it meant something.

For a handful of hours, they were beautiful.

 

March comes in, not with a bugle but with a high, unpleasant whistle.

Installations of electrics has begun. Nagachika has returned with a team of engineers and workers, all determined, excited, and nervous to take on such a technologically complicated project. Shuu, for the first time since before Hogmanay, attends with Mirumo in the main study to listen in on the project. Nagachika does a double-take at Shuu's appearance even though he's cleaned up and newly tailored clothing arrived the week before. He clearly catches himself, looking away in embarrassment, but it confirms that Shuu has suffered a quite obvious change in appearance. He'd known this, of course, from his tailoring measurements if nothing else, but it is still extremely disheartening.

"Shuu," Mirumo says, drawing Shuu out of his self-loathing and back into the conversation, "you had plans for the western conservatory?"

It is unfair, but Shuu can't hide all of his surprise. He hadn't been sure if Mirumo had actually read his memos. Of course he would. Mirumo has always paid attention to Shuu.

"Yes," Shuu says, very aware that there's been an uncomfortable pause. "It is a pleasant room that gets a good amount of sunshine and maintains warmth. I was thinking that it would be optimal to install an extra socket or two in the room. Near the west-facing windows, if possible."

"It is not a room that is used much," Mirumo says to Nagachika, who seems to shift his attention back to him a bit reluctantly, "but perhaps this will change that."

The meeting doesn't last very long. Mirumo is not interested in the deep technicalities, and he has other business to attend to as he will be leaving for business in London in a few days. Shuu has agreed to remain on Bute to oversee the work until he and Kanae are to go to Paris after Easter. There has been no discussion of whether Shuu's health will allow this. He will go. He cannot hide from society forever. It is how it must be.

"Shuu," Mirumo says as Nagachika gathers up the plans and note paper; the use of his name means that Shuu noticeably drifted away again. "Will you be joining us for dinner?"

Dinner is at eight. Shuu shakes his head. 

"I have some translations to complete," he says because he does; Mirumo apparently sent the second book of Virgil's _Georgics_ with Yoshimura to London, who had expressed interest in seeing the entirety translated.

Mirumo frowns. Only slightly, but that it is a great amount of expression for him. Shuu suddenly feels a lot more awake. 

"Would you have time to join us for cards?"

Cards means drinks. Shuu smiles, concentrating very hard on not letting it turn into a grimace. He'll have to beg Eliza or Matsumae to make sure there is coffee. Maybe some plain biscuits. 

"Of course, Father."

The whole affair gives him a headache. Shuu sits at his writing desk and gets exactly a paragraph done before Kanae comes up with a lamp. He looks a bit wan and moves slowly, which makes Shuu open his mouth to ask after his health. Kanae gives him a long-suffering look before he can voice more than the first syllable of the question.

"It's nothing," he grits out, prodding the fire to life with more force than necessary. "Seems a few months off iron rations and I'm completely hale and hearty."

Ah. Shuu studiously looks back at his translation and dried up pen. Kanae bangs around a bit more while Shuu cleans his pen. It's just past five. Shuu suspects that Matsumae will be up soon with whatever is going to be served at eight. He's right. It's cottage pie. Shuu stares at the tray glumly long enough that Matsumae frowns at him. It's a record. If Shuu still kept a diary, he would have written it down: _today, I managed to make Papa, Matsumae, and Kanae frown at me._ It would be humourous if it wasn't so sad.

"I'm sure it's delicious," Shuu mumbles as Kanae tucks into his serving. "But I'll be joining Papa and our guests for cards, so I'm alright."

Matsumae sighs but doesn't reprimand him for his tone. "Would you like coffee to be served?"

"Yes," Shuu mumbles, standing up and moving towards his bedroom to decide what to wear (not that it matters, he thinks even more glumly; fashion can't cover for him at this stage). "And biscuits would be welcome, I'm sure."

As it turns out, both the coffee and the biscuits are welcome. Nagachika beams when he sees Eliza carrying them in after Shuu announces himself. Mirumo is not there. Shuu wonders if he should be surprised.

"I greatly enjoyed them in the Christmas hampers," he elaborates in response to his head engineer, Nishiki Nishio, inquiry. "Are these shortbread?"

"It's a family recipe," Shuu says as Eliza withdraws to pour everyone coffee with a pleased smile on her face.

"Oh, a secret then," Nagachika murmurs before catching himself and laughing. "My apologies! I sort of talk to myself."

Shuu shakes his head. He's seated himself in the empty armchair closest to the fire. It is not built very high, which reflects the slowly warming although dreary weather. Shuu suspects he'll become quite cold soon.

"It is just the three of us, I assume?"

Nagachika nods as Nishio accepts a cup of coffee. "Koma was seasick yesterday, so he's taking it easy," he explains lightly before nodding his own thanks to Eliza for coffee. "It's a shame: he's the only one out of the three of us who is any good at cards."

Shuu snorts, surprising himself slightly. He looks down at the table, which is set for play. Eliza appears at his elbow with a cup of coffee. He accepts it. She pulls away, bowing properly and politely to excuse herself. He cannot thank her as he instinctively does when there is outside company.

"I'm terrible at cards," Shuu says, forcing himself to look up again and smile. "I'm afraid tonight's entertainment has been badly planned."

Nishio simply raises an eyebrow, but Nagachika laughs again, fuller somehow. "I see," he says thoughtfully.

He glances at Nishio, who frowns at him, and then to Shuu with a look that can only be characterised as sly. He doesn't say anything, although whether it is because he is holding back because of their difference in stations or something else is not clear. Shuu lifts his coffee to his mouth. Sips. He fumbles around within his brain for topic of conversation. He never had this problem before the war.

"I may be out of the loop," he says, just as both Nagachika and Nishio put biscuits into their coffee, "but installing electrics into a place like this: it's quite unusual, isn't it?"

"Aye," Nagachika says before wincing slightly at the colloquial slip; he sets his half-soaked biscuit down on his plate. "This is the biggest non-commercial project that I know of."

Shuu nods. He'd thought so. Mirumo had written about his plans to bring electricity to the main rooms of the family seat back in late 1916, but it had taken until now to make it take shape. The delay was both due to the technical difficulties of the project and the lack of available manpower during the war. The cost, which is considerable even to Shuu when he first saw the plans back in December, was never the issue. 

The silence stretches, but it is strangely pleasant. Nagachika and Nishio murmur to each other about the biscuits, arguing in a very familiar way if it's really a biscuit or if it is shortbread. Shuu finishes his coffee. He sets the cup back down the saucer, careful not to make any noise. A faint pulse is behind his eyes. He feels tired. A constant state these days.

"I," he starts before realising it's in a mumble; he clears his throat. "I apologise for not being very good company, but I must retire for the evening."

Shuu rises. Nagachika and Nishio begin to do so as well, but Shuu shakes his head. He tries his best to smile pleasantly, but from the odd looks they give him, it probably looks strained. He wonders if he'll ever be presentable in polite society again.

"While you are here, please treat this as your home," he says before a thought surfaces in the back of his mind. "If you would like anything more, please ring for it. I suggest you ask for chocolate biscuits. Those are the best ones."

Nagachika laughs while Nishio gives Shuu an uncertain, almost nervous look that Shuu recognises. It is how Mairo used to look at him before Yuma accepted him. For a moment, the room seems to ripple. Stage curtains threatening to draw. His legs -

_no gallant son of freedom_

Shuu turns. Maybe mumbles some sort of farewell. Maybe not. He manages to wait until he is out of the sitting room before pressing his palm to his forehead. He doesn't head to his rooms. He would have to climb the stairs. Instead, he walks to makes his way towards Kanae's. They're on the ground floor. 

Kanae doesn't question Shuu's appearance. Lets him in and returns to curl up in a ball on the bed. The room smells like the gas heater and faintly of the winter blooms that Kanae is drying on his desk. Shuu sits down heavily next to the heater. Back against the wall. He rests his head on his knees. 

There's a short silence before Kanae snorts out a pained laugh.

"What a pair we make."

Shuu laughs so hard he almost cries.

 

March runs into April. Shuu checks in on the renovations at regular intervals after Mirumo leaves for London. The weather remains rainy and grey, but it is not so bitterly cold. Shuu takes to walking down to the stables and then riding down to the river. Sometimes Kanae comes with him and they murmur about the news that comes with the papers and Yuma and Mairo's increasingly regular letters. Other times, Shuu goes alone, stopping to watch the river for long periods. He rides back chilled and shivering and drinks coffee until he can think again. 

He senses that he is running out of time. It's not the same sort of urgent press as being in the war, but there's a sense of foreboding all the same. The Racial Equality Proposal, as it is now called, did not pass. In a true testament to his character, Yuma has not mentioned any of Shuu or Kanae's opinions in his articles. Instead, they write furiously between the four of them, Mairo relaying sentiments from London that Shuu knows his father would never be aware of.

 _It is a gross mistake_ , Mairo scrawled in his last letter, his penmanship worse than usual with the speed at which he'd written. _Tad says I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up, but I couldn't help it. I am still a dreamer. I am bitterly disappointed._

That letter, received only two days after the proposal failed, had nearly made Shuu cry. Kanae caught the look on his face and immediately taken the letter. It hurt just as much to watch Kanae's expression fall.

"Oh," Kanae sighed, folding the letter again and setting it back on Shuu's writing desk.

Matsumae had watched the two of them, a pinched look on her face that never used to be there. Shuu knows that she worries about them. He thinks he understands why she worries about Shuu himself, but he isn't certain as to what has her worried about Kanae. Something passed between them in the month that Shuu spent shut up in his rooms. He can only guess it's related to whatever happened to Kanae's violin, but he doesn't know how to begin asking. If he should ask. He may be their lord, but he is not their master. He never was and he does not wish to be, especially now.

It's brought to the fore of Shuu's mind that he has changed. It's not just the war. It's the circle of people with whom he chooses to associate. Before and through the beginning of the war, Shuu had been a product of his birth and his circumstance. If he looked up, there were the other Dukes and the King. Although he never consciously thought it, all else was beneath him. Now, Shuu is aware that the divisions that once seemed so stark are blurry. They've ceased to exist between him and Kanae, and Shuu finds himself wishing that he knew how to bridge it between him and Matsumae. It shows in how he writes so frankly to Yuma and Mairo. 

It shows, too, in how he interacts with Nagachika. Nishio and Koma are easier to navigate. They prefer the security of established positions, and the only conversation Shuu shares with either of them is work-related and polite greetings and farewells. Nagachika smiles and laughs so easily, and Shuu finds himself gravitating towards that, even though he senses it's not always entirely honest. It's such a rare personality in Shuu's world. Their talk is light outside of business, but Shuu senses that they're both aware that there is a topic they're circling.

"You are," Shuu says when Nagachika finishes his report on progress late on the sixteenth of April; he leaves the next day for two weeks off on the Easter holidays, "a friend of Mister Kaneki, aren't you?"

Nagachika blinks, but it's not out of surprise. He smiles, a little sharp. 

"I am," he says before his lips turn further upward, softening the expression. "We went to secondary together and remained friends since."

Shuu hums. He looks out the window of the main study. It has a clear view of the fields and river. As the sun sets, Shuu can see the sheep being corralled for the evening. 

"He will be here over Easter," Shuu says, watching the dogs enthusiastically herding the sheep into place. "Although he did not complain, I sense his last visit here was not particularly comfortable."

"Ah," and it's a long-suffering sound; Shuu looks back to find Nagachika looking to the side with a pained expression on his face. "You noticed that, huh."

There's a short silence. Nagachika sighs, slouching briefly before he straighten and looks back to Shuu. It's a careful, searching expression. He opens his mouth once. Shuts it. Opens it again slowly.

"You and he..." Nagachika tries but trails off. 

His eyes flicker back and forth, suddenly nervous. Shuu feels his own lips twitch. It is as much as he can answer. Perhaps even that is too much. Nagachika grimaces. He looks down at his lap. He doesn't frown, but his eyebrows draw together.

"I don't know," he says, very carefully and to his lap. "Since he... He -" and he looks up, expression complicated. "Kaneki keeps an article from _The Herald_ about you in his studio."

Shuu stares. Nagachika smiles. It's both uncertain and strained, but it isn't disgusted. He is Kaneki's childhood friend. Shuu doesn't know what that means. He didn't have childhood friends. He can only guess that Nagachika does not utterly disapprove.

They don't say anything more on the subject. It's best that way. Nagachika, Nishio, and Koma along with their team leave for the holidays. Shuu watches them from the windows of the music rooms in the dim morning light. The carriages are heading out early to catch the first ferry out of Rothesay. 

Shuu looks back at the piano. At the music sheets he'd lain out and are still bare. He runs his fingers over the ivory. His calluses scratch over the surface. It's made out of bone.

It is a selfish wish in this cruel world, but Shuu does not want to live like this. He is no longer a child. The war is over, but it's crept into every nook and cranny. It lingers in the influenza. It festers in the Peace Conference. It will never, ever wash out. 

Even though he knows this, Shuu lingers. He clings on, even though he doesn't fully understand why. He is stupid, gravely so, but he is beautiful. Beauty is supposed to mean something. He wants it to mean something. 

He won't let the war take the best part of who he is away.


	6. April 1919, Part 1

**Excerpt from oral interview series collected by Hinami Fueguchi from 1965-1977**  
_Kanae von Rosewald (Subject ID: 152717); Interview 3 of 5, 8 July 1968 [postponed from June]_

      
**HF** : Your circumstance -

      
**KR** : I'm fairly sure anyone who cared to look knew. But Shuu worked hard to--it's sort of funny now, actually, because he was so bad at it--make our platoon appear as normal as possible. Which -

      
**HF** : I remember Yuma and Mairo.

      
**KR** : ( _laughing_ ) They loved to tease him. But, yeah, Mairo figured it out on his own, and Yuma definitely knew after...

      
**HF** : Your injury.

      
**KR** : Yes. 

      
**HF** : I've always been curious: why did you go back out?

      
**KR** : ( _long pause_ ) Shuu asked me. And... I paid off the doctor and two nurses who undressed me over the Channel. And Matsumae retrieved me in Dover, and we... I... 

      
**HF** : You felt like you didn't have a choice.

      
**KR** : Yes. ( _long pause_ ) Don't ever let Shuu know that.

      
**HF** : I won't -

      
**KR** : I don't regret it. I can't imagine what I would have done if I didn't do, do all, all those things and if we... Don't tell him. Not ever. I... This is so stupid. I'm so old, and I still have all these childish fears.

      
**HF** : They're not childish.

      
**KR** : No. No. No, they're not.

 

Without Nagachika and his team, the house is quiet.

The routine has not changed, Shuu now realises, since he was very young. Matsumae wakes him, as she did soon after he left nursery, and presents Shuu with the day's schedule, which began when Shuu was eight. Kanae joins most mornings, unless there is something pressing in the glasshouses to be done. The three of them take breakfast together. It's only there that there's been a notable change. The breakfast tray is sparse. Coffee replaces tea. Bread is accompanied only with honey for Shuu and butter for Kanae and Matsumae. The intense scrutiny of the breakfast tray worries Shuu. He senses that he may be in danger of obsession.

Matsumae eyes him. "You're quiet this morning."

It draws an odd look from Kanae to Matsumae. Shuu shrugs. He nibbles off the last of the crust of his bread. He never used to like crusts. His head hurts.

It's awkward. Shuu doesn't know how to break the silence. He can't think of a topic of conversation that wouldn't be fairly alarming. He didn't sleep well. Kanae and he will be leaving for Paris in a fortnight. Mirumo sent a very long letter that arrived the day before briefing Shuu on a number of people he wishes Shuu to entertain while there, including the Washuu, Baron Kamishiro, and Yoshimura. He has no idea how he will manage to be remotely entertaining. He is fairly sure that if it is Tsuneyoshi Washuu or Yoshitoki, they'll be able to tell that something is seriously wrong with him. He is convinced that Kamishiro and Yoshimura already know. 

Kaneki will arrive this afternoon. 

Matsumae collects the breakfast tray. Shuu lies back down in bed. Ignores both her and Kanae's inquiry about this health. He doesn't know how to answer. He doesn't want to be a liar. He doesn't want his lips sewn shut.

He remembers, unbidden, a picture that Yoshimura once showed him of his daughter, Eto. Shuu has never met Eto in person, and, due to the scandal associated with Eto over the past several years, doubts he will ever encounter her in polite society. When Yoshimura showed him the picture, though, Shuu was ten and Eto was six. It was a proper portrait. She was dressed in her Sunday best, clearly the apple of her father's eye.

"She's very pretty," Shuu had said, dutifully, although a part of him had been puzzled as to why he was being shown the picture.

"I'm glad you think so," Yoshimura said, looking at the portrait and smiling a little distantly. "Children grow up so quickly."

Yoshimura was not there for most of Eto's youth. Mirumo was often away, but he came back to Bute regularly or summoned Shuu to visit him in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London when he was away for particularly long stretches. Shuu estimates that Yoshimura, as primary manager of Tsukiyama Co.'s European assets, must have spent at least three-quarters of the year away. 

No wonder Eto wants nothing to do with him.

The sun is high by the time Shuu drags himself out of bed. He dresses himself in what Matsumae had set out, not daring to look into the mirror before he has his socks and trousers on. When he first got out of the hospital, he'd covered the mirrors in the converted guest room and bath. Matsumae had not commented on it. Shuu had been grateful for it then. Now he wonders if he'd hurt her. She shouldered so much of him in those months, just the two of them in that house.

He makes his way to the main study. It's empty, although the desk has been prepared for the day. Shuu seats himself, looking down at the stationary. Blank. He feels a strange surge of kinship with the paper.

As soon as that happens, though, he recoils. Not physically but in every visceral sense of the word. Shuu is not blank. He cannot be. If he was truly blank, then nothing that has ever happened would matter. Maybe it doesn't, he thinks a little madly, but he wants it to. Shuu shuts his eyes. Represses the urge to throw the stationary out the window.

Instead, he ignores Mirumo's letter and writes to Yoshimura. He isn't sure if he intends to actually send it. The letter rambles. He describes the process of translation and his progress through the first book of the _Georgics_. He inquires as to how business is. If Yoshimura is well. He begins to write, in far too much detail, about the electrical installations before he stops himself. Sets his pen down. Presses his fingers against his lips.

He doesn't understand what he is doing with his life. 

Shuu looks up at the ceiling. He remembers playing with toy soldiers and cavalry units when he was a boy. He'd send them to war, galloping valiantly into the fray. His soldiers dismounted and fought honourable duels. It was less like what real warfare was even by the time that Shuu was five and more like the stories that were in the tales of King Arthur, of Homer, of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. But one thing remains the same:

_Empires wax and wane; states cleave asunder and coalesce._

The ceiling has scenes of sheep, horses, and Highland cattle. Shuu closes his eyes. He listens to the faint wind outside the window, the various creaks and groans of the house. It was built in a wedding gift to his great-great-grandmother. The marriage, from what he has gathered, was a tumultuous one, based more on politics and wealth than any actual heartfelt sentiment. An old and storied family back in Japan: the Tsukiyama were wealthy and astute but marriage was the most expedient way to imbed themselves into society. These were things that were glossed over in Shuu's childhood lessons, but it began to seep in at Eton. It simmered at Christ Church. It cannot be ignored anymore now that Shuu has fought a war on the opposite end of the imperial alliances. It's as Kamishiro started to say, years ago. No matter what titles they hold, no one has ever seen them as equal.

There is a dangerous wish that has taken root in his heart. 

"Master Shuu," Matsumae's voice filters in through these thoughts. "It's time to wake up."

He opens his eyes. Tilts his head down. Matsumae stands across the desk. She watches him with an uncertain expression. Shuu breathes in. Sighs.

"Has the carriage from Rothesay arrived?"

She nods, eyes flickering over his face. Shoulders. Torso. Checking he is dressed appropriately. Or at least presentably. 

"Mister Kaneki is being shown to his rooms. Would you like him brought here?"

Shuu nods. He looks down at the desk. The letter to Yoshimura sits unfinished. He sighs again, moving it aside and reaching for the house account ledger.

"Please bring coffee and biscuits."

She nods. Pauses. A strange, intense look passes over her face. It makes Shuu sit up straight. Alarmed.

"It is a lot to ask," Matsumae says, faster than usual, "but I wish for you to consider allowing me to serve you and Kanae for the duration of your assignment in Paris."

It takes Shuu aback, although he instinctively wants nothing more than to say yes. It is a lot to ask. Matsumae is head of house. She is in charge of running everything from arranging the servant roster and rotation to making sure there is enough flour in the kitchen. Nothing that occurs in the house or on its grounds occurs without her notice, approval, and disapproval. It had been a great upheaval for her to attend to Shuu in Glasgow while he recovered. To remove her again is not a light request.

Shuu looks down at his hands. The ledger. He thinks of how, when he was very young, he thought that ledgers were Mirumo's bedtime storybooks. Mirumo loves him more than anything. They lie to each other.

"I'll write to Papa," he says, thumbing the frayed edges of the cover fabric; it's velveteen. "I," he starts before he can stop himself, "would be very happy if you would come."

Silence. Shuu forces himself to look up. Matsumae is staring at him. It is not unpleasant nor is it simply observational. There's a light in her eyes. Soft and bright. She used to watch him and Kanae like that, even when Shuu got Kanae into trouble. She hasn't looked at them like that in a very long time.

"Thank you," she says, bowing low, "Master Shuu."

He nods. She straightens only to bow again, a lesser one to excuse herself. Shuu watches her turn and cross the room. Open the study's doors and step out. Close them. There's no one to watch this charade of formality. Usually, they don't stand by it. Almost never in the privacy of Shuu's personal quarters. But Matsumae has made a formal request, and Shuu gave a formal answer. To ignore the rest would be to have two left feet.

Shuu looks down. 

He opens the ledger.

 

Kaneki does not look well.

It's a bit of a nasty shock. Kaneki himself is unable to hide his alarm at Shuu's appearance. It's incredibly awkward, shaking hands and trying not to stare at each other baldly as Matsumae and Eliza ready coffee and biscuits. Shuu produces stilted, polite greetings and banal inquiries. Kaneki mumbles or stutters over his answers as they seat themselves at the armchairs around the conversation table. 

It's as if, Shuu thinks wildly as he accepts a coffee cup and saucer from Matsumae, that Kaneki's wardrobe and physical appearance switched places from last time. The traveling suit that Kaneki wears is a dourly coloured but fashionably cut, and his shoes are new and neatly shined instead of creased and scuffed at the toe and sole. Kaneki, though, looks sallow and holds himself much as he did when Shuu met him, constantly turned slightly as if to shield his blind side. A part of Shuu wants nothing more than to ask if something has happened. Another, much larger and louder part, points out that this would open Shuu up to similar scrutiny as Matsumae and Eliza withdraw from the room.

An uncomfortable silence descends. Kaneki stares into his coffee. Shuu grasps for a topic of conversation. Anything will do. Shuu opens his mouth.

"The ewes lambed enthusiastically this year."

Kaneki, who had just brought his coffee to his lips, chokes so hard some of it comes out of his nose. He sets his cup and saucer down hastily just as Shuu does. They both scramble for handkerchiefs, Kaneki to press against his mouth, Shuu to offer with a stream of apologies. Kaneki shakes his head, eye shut tight as he wheezes. He's bright red.

"What?" he manages as Shuu sits back; he manages to squint, eye watering. " _What_?"

Shuu shrugs. Offers his handkerchief again. Kaneki coughs and shakes his head. Shuu takes it back. Folds it in half. Into fourths. 

"It's true," he says, and he realises he must have screamed his earlier statement; the only reason they're still alone is because everyone in the household is used to that sort of screaming. "We're still working on selling the surplus."

"That's -" Kaneki starts, sniffing before reaching up to dab his eye with a clean corner of his handkerchief, "good?"

"Yes and no," Shuu says, although a part of him protests weakly that he's really not qualified on this particular subject. "I like sheep."

"You like sheep," Kaneki says, a bit slowly but more disbelieving than mocking. 

"They are," Shuu says before he can stop himself, "soft and fluffy and noble animals."

Kaneki bursts out laughing. He clearly attempts to stop himself, putting his handkerchief up over his mouth again, but it does little. After a moment, Shuu finds himself chuckling a little as well, which makes Kaneki laugh harder. Shuu reaches out and takes his coffee cup. Sips it as Kaneki wheezes into his handkerchief, free hand drifting up to adjust his eyepatch briefly. The coffee is still hot and very pleasant.

"Oh," Kaneki breathes, mopping at his face. "Oh, dear. I... Do you... Do you want me to paint you with the sheep?"

It takes Shuu aback, which causes his mouth to run ahead of his brain. "That would be quite mad."

"Oh," Kaneki wheezes, clearly about to start cracking up again. "Aye. Yes."

They fall into a companionable silence. Kaneki folds up his handkerchief and finally gets to have some of his coffee. Shuu retrieves a chocolate biscuit from the platter. He breaks it in half over his plate. Into fourths. Kaneki watches him rearrange the quarters back together on the plate.

"In all honesty," Shuu says to the biscuit, "I don't have any ideas on how you should paint me. I -" and maybe this is too honest but he's already started, "I am not a pleasing subject at the moment."

Kaneki is quiet. Shuu cannot quite make himself look up. There's crumbs from the breaking of the biscuit scattered on the plate. He remembers sneezing once while making coffee and spilling his ration all over his pants and the dirt. Yuma laughed so hard he almost cried. He had taught Shuu how to make coffee.

"I," Kaneki starts, and it's strained through his teeth, "don't think either are at our best."

It makes Shuu laugh. It's not a warm sound. They have never known each other at their best. Shuu suspects those days, that Shuu, is gone. He'd been clever and a little cruel, but he never lacked for admirers or lovers. He didn't have friends, but he hadn't thought he needed them. He had Mirumo, Matsumae, Kanae, and everyone back home. For a while, when he was down often to London, he had Chie Hori, who funnelled him information that he sent back to Mirumo. She wasn't an admirer or a lover; she was employed but only loosely by the family. She sat and listened to Shuu, which she didn't have to do. He'd thought that was a friend.

Across the table, Kaneki sits back in his chair. Sets down his cup with a faint clink on the saucer. Shuu looks at the cup. Kaneki has drunk over half of it. It stirs a thought in the mire of Shuu's brain.

"Did you drink more tea or coffee before the war?"

A long pause. Shuu can't make himself look up. He watches Kaneki's chest rise. Fall. Rise again, deeper.

"Neither very much," Kaneki says, very softly. "But coffee, I guess. Why?"

Shuu swallows. He looks down at his biscuit. His hands clench and unclench on the table top.

"I used to drink tea," he says, and it comes out mumbled to the point it's almost slurred. "I can't stand tea anymore."

Kaneki sucks in a breath. "I remember," he gets out, not much louder but it enables Shuu to look up; his eye is on Shuu, wide and open and pained. "Your housekeeper served us. Earl Grey. Very nice. I could taste the bergamot. I thought -"

He chokes. Colours across his cheeks and up his neck. He looks down at his lap. Bites the inside of his lip. He must be clenching his hands against his thighs.

"I thought it matched you," he says, still biting his lip and eye falling into a squint like he's about to cry. "It was the best tea I've ever had."

Shuu wants to reach out, but he can't make his hands move. It makes him want to scream, but he can't even do that. He used to touch, grab, and take whatever he wanted. Now, the only person he feels like he understands how to interact with is Kanae.

They fall into a long silence. Kaneki drinks the rest of his coffee. Shuu's gaze drifts to the window. The sheep are out and about, grazing and meandering as they have for millennia as they graze. Across the table, Kaneki helps himself after a waffling pause to more coffee, leaning over to refill Shuu's cup. He helps himself to a couple of the chocolate biscuits, eating them swiftly as if he expects them to be taken away. It's that insight that prods Shuu again. Be good. Be polite. Pleasant. Don't bring shame upon -

"Do you ride?"

Kaneki blinks, thrown. "Do I -" he starts before catching himself, blinking again and grimacing. "A little. Not very well."

Shuu hums. Looks down into his coffee. The electrics hum low, a constant background noise. Nagachika is Kaneki's childhood friend. Shuu didn't know how to discuss Kaneki with him anymore than he knows how to bring up Nagachika with Kaneki. If it would be welcome. Kaneki is much more withdrawn than his childhood friend, who Shuu has come to appreciate. Perhaps like, although not in the manner he likes Kaneki but more as how he came to like Yuma and Mairo. But unlike Yuma and Mairo, who served under Shuu but with whom mutual respect bloomed, Kaneki and Nagachika are employed by Shuu's family. Is it possible to bridge that kind of divide? It makes Shuu start to feel nervous. It threatens to give him a headache.

When he looks up again, Kaneki is watching him. Lips pursed and eyebrows drawn together. Nervous and uncertain. It is a bit unfair, but this similarity, although probably falsely correlated, gives Shuu the courage to continue.

"Perhaps tomorrow," Shuu says, and he can't manage to change it from a mumble, "if the weather permits, you would join me. You may borrow a horse. It is a very easy ride down along the river."

Kaneki hesitates. Shuu doesn't blame him. It is a dangerous offer. Kaneki swallows. He turns the cup in his hands. He sucks in his bottom lip briefly before pushing it out with his tongue. He swallows again.

"Weather permitting," he says, very softly.

 

Shuu finds Kanae covered in dirt in the glasshouse.

"What are you doing?"

"I," Kanae says as he raises the hoe again and brings it down on the dirt and the roots of a rather beaten-looking rose bush, "hate this."

Shuu blinks. He looks at the bush. At Kanae and the hoe, which drives down several times to break up the soil and the roots. He has to repress the urge to reach up and fiddle with his hair.

"I don't understand."

"No," Kanae grits out, bashing the hoe down again with enough force that Shuu winces as dirt and bits of broken root go flying. "Don't ask. Just let me -"

"Right," Shuu says, very hurriedly as he steps back and backtracks a bit to sit on a nearby bench. "Right, right."

Unusually after Matsumae and Eliza came to clean up the study and to politely guide Kaneki back to his rooms, Matsumae had lingered behind to murmur that Shuu should go down to the rose glasshouse. Kaneki had caught the look on Shuu's face before he allowed Eliza to guide him down to his rooms, which are situated next to the library. Shuu had heard from Kanae that Kaneki had found the library to be particularly impressive on his last visit, and hopefully situating him next to it will make his stay more comfortable in the mitigating absence of Nagachika. 

Kanae curses. Shuu forces himself to refocus. Kanae stands slightly bent, the hoe set aside as he massages gingerly his left hand with his right. Shuu wants to sigh, but he stops himself. He stands instead, moving to offer his help in taking Kanae's glove off. There's raw spots and a bright blister forming over the empty knobs of knuckle where Kanae's ring and little finger once were.

"Do you -"

"I have ointment," Kanae whispers.

Shuu hums. He cups over the injury. Shields it. Kanae lets him, the two of them standing close enough to fold into each other in the glasshouse path. 

They head back up to the main house. It's a quiet walk in the setting sun. Shuu keeps hold of Kanae's bad hand, although they've both put gloves back on. It's unevenly warm beneath the kid leather, which means that Kanae is in more pain than he will admit to. There's a light, misty drizzle. If Shuu actually ever gets around to having his eyes checked, it would fog up his glasses, just like Mirumo. It's a large part of why Shuu hasn't mentioned that he may need them.

They end up in Kanae's rooms. Kanae makes to start the fire, but Shuu waves him away. Points to the vanity. 

"Ointment."

It draws a brief mulish look before Kanae sighs, turning to the vanity with a shake of his head. Shuu moves to the fireplace, adding a couple of new logs before reaching to the mantle to get the matches. Kanae's quarters are the only personal ones besides Mirumo's that has a gas heater fitted, a luxury that denotes how far up in the family Kanae's status has moved. Shuu has found, however, that Kanae only prefers the heater if he is feeling particularly unwell. It's hard to blame him. It has a distinctive smell. 

"Like burning boots," Kanae had mumbled as Shuu dutifully looked away as the scent of blood briefly filled the room. "It's convenient, though."

Maybe Shuu is already becoming old-fashioned, but he prefers the fireplace. There's something comforting about the crackling of the wood and the particularly heat of the flame, safely contained in the hearth. He knows now that he's perfectly capable of becoming mesmerised by it for hours. Behind him, Kanae fiddles about at the vanity, grumbling absentmindedly in German beneath his breath about his own lack of organisation.

"If you can't find it," Shuu says, using the poker to prod a log once more before turning to return it to the stand, "I have more than enough to spare."

Kanae snorts. Mirumo has ordered so much medicinal ointment since Shuu and Kanae returned to the family seat that it's frankly becoming comedic. Eliza recently burnt herself while taking bread out of the oven, and both Kanae and Shuu separately attempted to foster off ointment to her. The stockpile in Shuu own wardrobe is growing to be absurd.

"I just stored fudge on top of it," Kanae grumbles before he offers a crumpled paper packet Shuu. "Do you want some?"

It's what Mairo sent for Easter. He's apparently dating a very kitchen-savvy lady down in London. Shuu eyes the package, feeling a mix of intense want and guilt.

"It's yours."

Kanae throws it at him. Shuu yelps and nearly fumbles the catch. The package is almost empty. Kanae smirks slightly, picking up the ointment tub without looking. 

"I know you ate yours in one go," he teases, a light dancing in his eyes. "It's good, but I don't like sweet things half as much as you do."

It's true. "It's delicious," Shuu mumbles, looking down and starting to open the package. "He better marry her."

Kanae snorts. "If he's getting as fat as he's boasting he is," he scoffs good-naturedly.

There's still four pieces of fudge left in the bag. Shuu extracts one and shoves it in his mouth. It's so sweet and soft and completely unlike tablet and so, so good. He eats a second piece before Kanae laughs at him. Shuu doesn't care.

They end up much as they often do these days, Shuu sitting by the fire and Kanae flopped on his bed. There are things they could talk about, but they don't. Mostly because they often don't need to. What they do need to talk about is painful and draining. Neither of them are cowards, but they are not masochists. They avoid pain that can be avoided, although it looms much as everything does these days.

The one feature that Kanae's room lacks is natural light. There's two windows, but they're fairly small and don't face the sun. The dimness causes Shuu to begin dozing, which means that Matsumae's appearance with the dinner tray startles him. She stands in the doorway, hands up.

"It's Matsumae," Kanae murmurs, soft and careful, "Master Shuu."

Shuu swallows. Nods. He looks down at his lap. His hands are shaking. Matsumae enters very carefully, setting the dinner tray on Kanae's study table. Kanae slides off the bed, kneeling down next to Shuu. His expression is very gentle. It's what Kanae would look like when Shuu woke from nightmares in the war. It's a strange, bitter continuity.

"Are you hungry?"

No. He shakes his head. Kanae nods, motioning the act of pouring to Matsumae. Yes. Some coffee sounds good. It reminds Shuu, extremely belatedly, that he originally went to the glasshouses to see Kanae for a reason.

He reaches out. Presses his fingers against Kanae's right elbow. It draws Kanae's attention back, questioning.

"Mister Kaneki and I," Shuu starts, but his voice is garbled and rough; he coughs to clear his throat. "We were planning to go riding tomorrow, weather permitting. He... We would need your horse."

Kanae frowns slightly. It's not disapproving. Worried. Lately, Shuu's habit of riding down to the river has been concerning to both Kanae and Matsumae. It's unsaid, but Shuu suspects they fear he may attempt to drown himself. He has no such intention, although the thought does occasionally cross his mind. It's just a thought. Besides, Shuu is perfectly capable of swimming. He doesn't know how to explain this.

"That's fine," Kanae says, very softly. "But only if weather is good. You -" he grimaces, realising he's speaking his mind, "get cold very easily."

Shuu wonders what Kanae was going to say before he caught himself, but it's not worth it to ask. He looks up at Matsumae, who holds out two cups of coffee to them. Shuu accepts his as Kanae turns. There's a faint sense of tension that makes Shuu want to lie down and curl up into a ball.

"Please," he says instead, and it's improper of him to plead, but he's unable to think of another way to approach, "I know that I am difficult, but you--you shouldn't fight. I don't -" and his voice cracks, like he is fifteen again. "I want you both by my side."

He looks down. At his coffee. His hands are shaking. It makes the liquid slosh in jittery little waves. He’s struck, suddenly, with the thought he could have just told them he loves them. It wasn’t his first instinct. There is a roaring in his ears. It’s very quiet.

There’s a couple of footsteps. Matsumae’s hands appear, reaching out and extracting the coffee cup. She sets it on the ground, far enough from them so that she may slide to sit next to him. For a moment, her hands hover, uncertain if she should set her hands down on his legs or reach for his shoulders. She settles for taking his hands, rubbing his fingers absently. Kanae moves around the room. Wardrobe. Bed. A heavy blanket and pillow precede Kanae, who settles next to Shuu’s other side.

“We’re not fighting,” Matsumae says, softly and very honest. “We had a disagreement in January.”

“I,” Kanae murmurs, plucking a ball of fuzz from the blanket, “threw my violin in the river.”

Shuu looks up. Neither Kanae nor Matsumae meet his gaze. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

“It was your mother’s.”

Kanae nods. Matsumae’s eyes flicker unbidden between them. Shuu swallows.

“I don’t understand.”

Another nod. Matsumae closes her eyes. Breathes out a long sigh.

They sit together for a very long time. Matsumae helps wrap Shuu in the extra blanket as Kanae lies down, head pillowed and gaze on the ceiling. They were arguing, Shuu realises now, when he would overhear them whispering in his reception room back in January. It’s likely about more than just the violin. Kanae has a temper. Always did, but Shuu is starting to suspect it’s harder to control these days. He takes it out on the glasshouses, probably due to what happened in January.

Matsumae breaks the silence. 

“I think,” she says, quiet but not soft; there’s a deepness to it that Shuu has only heard a few times in his life, “being here is not helping. You’ve both outgrown this house.”

It’s shocking how much Shuu instinctively agrees. He would never have thought of that himself, but now that it’s been said aloud it’s obvious. Extraordinarily so. The war ate into them. Marked them. Changed them. That both he and Kanae look so eagerly through the post for letters from Yuma and Mairo is a good example of the change. They aren’t divorced from who they once were. Shuu is still self-centred and inward-looking. Kanae is still walking a tightrope between who Kanae was born as and who Kanae lives as. But they are no longer the sheltered children they were before. Matsumae is the only person close enough to understand this. 

Shuu leans back against the wall. He closes his eyes.

 

The next morning, Shuu leaves early to go down to the stables. 

The staff there are surprised to see him so early, but they do not question him. Shuu spends a long time in stable with his horse, Henri, who was a birthday gift when Shuu turned twenty. He and Henri have only recently come to know each other as Shuu was away at university and then in the war. Henri was also in the war, despite being a thoroughbred, loaned out to the cavalry when all available resources were called up. It’s left Henri with aching knees and no hope for racing. Shuu kneels down to massage Henri’s knees. He supposes he feels a sort of kinship with his horse. 

“Lord Tsukiyama.”

Instinctively, Shuu looks up and around, searching for his father. Of course, Mirumo is not there. When he focuses on Fergus, the barn manager, he has a slightly amused expression on his face. Kaneki lingers just behind him, looking faintly surprised.

“Ah,” Shuu says; he takes a moment to stand up, right hand braced against Henri’s side. “Good morning, Fergus. I see you found Mister Kaneki.”

“If you mean this bloke I found wandering in the fields,” Fergus joke, jabbing a thumb back at a reddening Kaneki, “aye.”

Shuu feels his lips twitch. His own knees don’t feel endeared to him kneeling in hay, so Fergus’ humour is a good way to take his mind off them. Kaneki looks down. Nervous again. Shuu regrets himself. Fergus seems to catch onto some of this. His expression sobers and he drops his hand.

“Mister Kaneki will be borrowing Pompom, I take it?”

“Yes,” Shuu murmurs.

They ride out as the sun comes out from behind the clouds. They go slowly as Kaneki is very unsure in the saddle, even on Pompom, who is a training horse too old for the war and so docile in temperament Kanae is fond of stacking wooden alphabet blocks on her head. Kaneki is bundled up in a winter jacket, a thick, rather ugly wool scarf stuffed in the collar. It makes his head look like a strange cake.

“So,” Kaneki says, after they come over a low hill and upon the sheep, “do you come out riding often?”

“Most days,” Shuu says, waving to the minder who waves back, “unless Henri or my legs are acting up.” 

Kaneki turns his head to Shuu, unconsciously also attempting to turn Pompom. Luckily, Pompom is unmoved from the straight-on course and doesn’t crash into Henri and Shuu. Kaneki grimaces, hastening to correct his posture and hold. The flustering is probably the only reason the next question leaves his mouth.

“They still hurt?”

Shuu pauses. The sheep shuffle grumpily out of their way, a couple baying in annoyance. Henri snorts at them, equally annoyed. Shuu looks briefly down at Henri, stroking him against the neck.

“They never stopped.”

A long pause. Shuu glances back at Kaneki, who looks ahead of them. His jaw is tense.

“You shouldn’t have been sent back out,” Kaneki says, bold as he has always been but blunt in a new, raw way. 

Shuu doesn’t say anything. He looks ahead. They ride in silence, the only sound the grumbling of sheep and Henri and Pompom’s occasional snorts. 

They come alongside the river. It’s calm today, sparkling in the sunlight. Shuu directs them to the wide part of the bank where grass grows almost to the river’s edge. They dismount, allowing Henri and Pompom to meander as they will, interested in the juicy riverside grass. Kaneki hovers for a long moment near to Pompom’s side, turning his head this way and that as he takes in the scene.

“It’s beautiful.”

Shuu feels himself smile. He moves up the bank to sit where the grass grows thickest at a curve in the earth. Kaneki blinks at him, hands twitching slightly at the sides of his ugly grey coat.

“I come here to swim in the summer.”

Kaneki flushes. Shuu realises belatedly what sort of images that statement must offer him. It makes Shuu start to laugh, both at himself and at Kaneki. He covers his mouth with his right hand. He knows that his eyes won’t be able to hide his amusement at all. Kaneki flushes bright red, his hands clenching as he moves to stand only a couple paces from Shuu, looking down at him.

“I don’t,” he says, higher than usual and a little loud, “know how to swim.”

There’s a pulse in Shuu’s chest. His stomach. His throat. He’s not dressed as warmly as Kaneki, but he feels like he is.

“It’s not yet the weather to teach you.”

Kaneki sits down next to him. Crosses his legs underneath himself. He grits his teeth. Rests his hands on his thighs. He radiates heat. Shuu watches him breath in. Breathe out. 

“I -”

Their eyes meet. Kaneki’s mouth remains open, but no sound comes out. The river runs below them. It rained in the night, but the grass beneath them is thick enough to cover the mud.

The kiss is badly choreographed. Hesitant. But it is not unpleasant. Kaneki's fingers curl tight in Shuu's collar, squashing the starched edges. Shuu makes a sound. He doesn't recognise it. Kaneki sighs. They adjust themselves, lips moving against each other. It's less awkward.

They end up lying together on the blanket, trading kisses and letting their hands wander. Kaneki is very warm. It makes Shuu press close with another of those strange noises. He isn't unwelcome. Kaneki tucks himself around Shuu, tangling their legs together. Shuu mouths against the delicate skin under Kaneki's jaw. Breathes against it, making Kaneki shiver.

"What," Kaneki asks, even as he moves his thigh to press between Shuu's legs, "are we doing?"

Shuu doesn't know. He presses kisses against Kaneki's throat until he reaches the ugly scarf. The layers of fabric between them is suddenly irritating. Kaneki's hands grasp at Shuu's hips. He presses his thigh up more insistently, gaining a grunt.

"What are we doing?"

It's a fair question, but Shuu doesn't want to explain. Doesn't want to put a name to it. He runs his fingers over the wool of Kaneki's coat. Fights with himself.

"I thought about you," he says, "until I couldn't."

Kaneki is still. Shuu shuts his eyes. Presses his forehead against the scarf. The coat collar. Even through that, he can feel Kaneki's collarbones. They're sharp beneath the layers of clothing.

They don't move for a long time. Shuu doesn't really think. He listens to Kaneki's breathing. Slow. Steady. Off in the distance, there's the sound of sheep. The river runs underneath the sun.

"I'm glad," Kaneki whispers, chin against the crown of Shuu's head. "I did, too."

A breeze picks up. It's warm.


	7. April 1919, Part 2

Excerpt from _Lucky Together: Memoirs of a Thousand Yards on the Western Front_ by M.I. Yuma (c.1879-1948), published posthumously in 1993:

     Kanae joined us a little under a month after the Lieutenant rejoined us. They looked painfully alike. Both had that stiff aristocratic bearing and formed their sentences like they wanted to sing rather than speak. Kanae’s arrival bolstered the Lieutenant’s mood, which had been poor since his return. He put on a good façade, but it was obvious he wasn’t the same person who was once completely oblivious to negative opinions. I sought to point it out to Kanae the first time we were together without the Lieutenant present.

    “I know,” Kanae said.

    He had a waspish tone that I initially took the wrong way until I realized he spoke to everyone like that aside from the Lieutenant, who is possibly the only person I’ve ever met to be completely immune to Kanae’s moods. He was a very moody individual, prone to snapping and seemingly lacking a brain to mouth filter. It took me a while to realize he could control his tongue. The Lieutenant being the Lieutenant simply allowed Kanae to say whatever he wanted just as he did with the rest of us. 

    “Your house must be an interesting place,” Mairo joked. 

    It was one of the few occasions outside of Kanae’s injury that we were together and the Lieutenant was not physically present. Kanae laughed, a soft, snorting sound. He went all in. We were gambling with our cigarettes. 

    “I suppose,” he said before a grin split his face; it reminded me of how young he was. “When all this is over, I’d like you to come visit.”

    Mairo chuckled. “That would be nice,” he said before leaning over the table to ruffle Kanae’s hair.

    Even though I laughed at Kanae’s indignant squawk, I felt my heart twist. When all this is over, Kanae’d said. It made me realize I hadn’t thought about the war being over in a very long time.

 

They don’t stay out by the river long. It’s not particularly chilly, but neither Shuu nor Kaneki are in the best of health. Shuu has to help Kaneki remount Pompom. They both turn colours. Kaneki smells of grass, wool, and paint thinner. Shuu’s face burns as he mounts Henri. They make their way back up the hill in embarrassed but not unpleasant silence.

The sheep have been herded slightly eastward. Shuu waves again to the shepherd who waves back. At this distance, Shuu cannot tell if it’s one of the new hires or if he knows the man. It’s a little embarrassing as Shuu likes to pride himself on knowing everyone in the house. He really should get his eyes checked.

It also, because Shuu is Shuu, makes him ask a very stupid question as he turns back to Kaneki.

“Is it difficult to see?”

There’s a long pause. Kaneki stares forward, his uncovered eye wide. Pompom continues her steady plod over the crest of the hill. Beneath Shuu, Henri snorts. Shuu pats him absentmindedly.

Eventually, Kaneki swallows. He glances over, which means he has to turn his head. He makes sure not to turn Pompom. The muscles of his jaw are tight.

“It depends,” he says, strained but not forced; he breathes in deep before looking down at his hands on Pompom’s reins. “I can’t fly or drive or shoot anymore, and I sometimes get headaches if I paint for too long. But I’m alright. I guess,” and he swallows again, steeling himself, “it’s like your legs. A primarily cosmetic injury.”

Shuu bursts out laughing before he can stop himself. It’s somewhat hysterical and rather high-pitched. It surprises Kaneki, who jerks Pompom’s reins. She snorts, shaking her head in displeasure. Underneath Shuu, Henri’s muscles ripple. Shuu looks forward. Forces himself to shut his mouth. Bite his tongue. Control himself.

It doesn’t work. His mouth opens again. His tongue moves. He soothes his right hand through Henri’s mane as he stares ahead at his house.

“I was a good commander,” he says, unable to stop himself. “I bet you were a good pilot.”

Kaneki chokes. Shuu can’t look at him. Henri and Pompom begin to move towards the stables, creatures of habit and probably tired of the cold. Shuu threads his fingers through the fine hair of Henri’s mane. He thinks of those stories where people rode as one with their horses, no saddles, bits, or reins. He wonders if it would be kinder for Henri to live like that.

“I was.”

It’s so soft that Shuu nearly misses it. He looks up. Turns his head. Kaneki’s hands fist Pompom’s reins so tightly that the whites of his knuckles are stark. He looks forward towards the stables, but whatever he sees is far, far away.

“I was,” he says, louder and higher, upset and indignant. “I was really, really good. I loved flying at night best. Up in the air with Hide, in the dark, even if it was shitty weather: I didn’t care. I loved it. It’s so, so free up there. I wanted –”

His voice breaks. He swallows. Shuu watches him blink rapidly. Swallow again. He looks down, at his hands clenched so tightly on the reins they tremble. He hasn’t pulled the leather taunt, though. It’s so very clear that he does not want to hurt Pompom. That he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. 

“ _Mon oiseau_.”

Kaneki chokes. A tear escapes his good eye. He reaches up, pressing his gloved fingers beneath both the eye and the eyepatch. It obscures his face. The muscles in his jaw jump.

“How many nights,” he says, wiping away the tears and adjusting his eyepatch, “I’ve lain in bed and thought about you calling me that.”

Shuu cannot respond. They’re close enough now to the stables that any further conversation could be overheard. Kaneki straightens, sniffing mightily. Shuu lets Henri take him a bit further before he signals for them to stop. He dismounts before turning to help Kaneki down as Fergus comes out of the stable office. Kaneki looks away after handing Pompom’s reins over to Fergus, who makes a very valiant attempt at hiding his curiosity before leading Pompom away. 

“Mister Kaneki.”

He looks up. Back to Shuu. He’s pale and his good eye is red. He’s clearly chilled. Shuu wants to reach out and draw him close. Warm him up. There are a thousand yards between them that didn’t exist by the river.

“I need to attend to some business,” Shuu says because it’s the truth no matter what his personal wishes are. “I am not certain if I will be done by dinner, but I would be happy if you would join me for drinks this evening.”

Perhaps happy is too obvious, but they’re fairly obvious with each other. Kaneki blinks at him, eye flickering back and forth. Shuu wonders what he sees.

“I,” he says, very carefully, “would be amiable to that.”

 

The mail is in from Rothesay. There’s a letter from Kamishiro addressed to Mirumo. A letter from Yoshimura addressed to Tsukiyama, which means both Mirumo and Shuu. There’s several missives, all addressed similarly to Yoshimura. A letter from Mairo, which has already been opened, presumably by Kanae. One of the missives is written in the small, tight handwriting of Mado Kureo, the mole that Tsukiyama and the Washuu share in the conservative party. Just looking at it starts a headache. 

Shuu shoves the rest of the correspondence to the side and opens the main drawer to find the letter opener. As an afterthought, he also takes out his father’s magnifying glass. Shuu sighs, tearing open the envelope. The letter in and of itself is not particularly interesting aside from Mado’s commentary on the growing conflict in Ireland. Shuu sets the magnifying glass down, leaning his elbows on the desktop as he massages his temples. He really should get his eyes checked.

He’s in the process of drafting out a notice of reception of the letter when Kanae arrives with the tea tray. Shuu is more than grateful to have an excuse to stop looking at Mado’s cramped handwriting. Kanae pours them both coffee, looking down with interest at the contents of the desk. It’s something he would never allowed himself before. His gaze lingers on the magnifying glass before he looks up to Shuu, an eyebrow raised.

“Do you have a headache?”

Shuu throws the rubber at Kanae, who just snorts as it flies over his head. He moves to sit down in the right armchair, which is currently receiving sun from the window. Shuu sips his coffee, threading the fingers of his left hand through his hair. 

“Did you read Mairo’s letter yet?”

“No,” Shuu says, looking back to Kanae, who is looking out the window. “Did something happen?”

Kanae shakes his head. “No,” he murmurs, a small smile lifting his lips. “He’s just talking about his girl.”

Oh, now Shuu has to read the letter. He sets down his coffee and retrieves the letter from the pile. Mairo’s sloppy scrawl goes on for about ten pages. Shuu skims over it, snorting with laughter by the fifth.

“Is it all –”

“Yes.”

Shuu snorts so hard he makes himself cough. He sets down the letter and retrieves his handkerchief to cover his mouth. His eyes water slightly but just from the coughing. He can feel his face straining from smiling.

“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Kanae says as Shuu subsides to chuckling. “‘She is like Helen but in no way is going to start a war. So perhaps –’”

“‘Aphrodite in the flesh’,” Shuu finishes before they both roar with laughter.

Really, Shuu is tickled. Mairo clearly had listened to Shuu and Kanae natter on about Greek classics more than he’d let on. They’d played a game, especially after Kanae returned from his injury, where they’d attempt to recite passages from their favourite epics to pass the time. It had to be in English as Kanae’s Ancient Greek isn’t stellar, which had made it a very interesting and engaging exercise. Shuu had thought that they’d bored Mairo and Yuma, who usually would play cards at those times. Apparently not.

Matsumae comes in with a couple of ledgers as they finally begin to calm down. She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment any further, lips twitching as she sets the ledgers in one of the sole empty spaces of the desk.

“These do not require immediate attention,” she says as Kanae leans forward to begin refilling his coffee cup, “but should be gone over within the next couple of days.”

Shuu nods. He sets aside his own coffee cup, reaching out for the first ledger. It’s the Paris account, which is the most pressing for him to examine. There’s nothing out of order, but Shuu needs to know how much is liquid to host the Washuu in the first week of May. If Matsuri comes, he’s certain to make some sort of outlandish request designed to test the efficiency and generosity of the Tsukiyama. Yoshitoki will certainly be there, which might mitigate the situation but only if Tsuneyoshi is not. The last Shuu heard, the head of the Washuu house was still very much active but no longer found travelling over long distances comfortable. That was over three years ago.

Shuu feels like his brain is melting.

The rest of the afternoon plods by in a similar fashion. Kanae leaves after the coffee pot is empty, murmuring about writing a response to Mairo’s letter. Matsumae comes in to collect the coffee, informing Shuu that dinner will be served at seven as usual. 

“Will you be attending?”

He doesn’t know and says so. Matsumae nods, the servant’s dour face in place. Shuu concentrates on getting through the Paris ledger and the Munich, the latter of which is in some disarray for obvious reasons. It grows nearly dark before Kanae shows up and turns on the new electric lights. 

“You know, this is probably why your eyes are going bad.”

Shuu never retrieved the rubber so he has to settle for throwing the pencil stub he’d been using to correct inflation calculations at Kanae’s head. It soars about a foot over. Kanae doesn’t even bother looking at it. He stands in the doorway, thumbs hooked in his dinner vest’s pockets.

“Are you going to be joining us for dinner?”

Shuu sits back. He reaches up, running his hands through his hair. He looks up the ceiling. The horses, sheep, and cattle. 

“No,” he says, arms falling back to his sides and looking back down at the Munich ledger. “I need to finish this before Kaneki and I have drinks this evening.”

A pause. “Drinks,” Kanae says.

Shuu looks up. Kanae’s eyebrows are raised. Shuu blinks. Frowns.

“Yes,” he says, distinctly feeling like he isn’t following something important. “I was thinking a nice red to go with the chocolates the Baron sent for Easter?”

Kanae squints at him. Shuu sits up straight. Reaches up and adjusts his hair.

“What?”

“You,” Kanae says, very carefully, “haven’t drunk since Hogmanay.”

Shuu stares at Kanae. That’s true. He looks down at the ledger. He was in the middle of long division. Shuu moves his fingers to massage his temples.

“I’ve already made the offer,” Shuu mumbles, resting his elbows on the table. “It would be impolite to withdraw it so hastily.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Kanae says, an edge of defensiveness to his tone.

“I know,” Shuu sighs, dropping his hands and picking up a new pencil to sharpen. “I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t apologise,” Kanae says, moving closer to begin straightening the mess that Shuu has made of the desk. “Or mumble. Matsumae will bring something suitable. Your reception room, I assume?”

Shuu nods. Brushes the shavings into the bin while Kanae removes the Paris ledger and the completed letters and responses. He’s just about to take his handkerchief out to clean off his fingers of graphite when Kanae catches his hand. Kanae’s bad hand. His expression is pinched. Nervous. But there’s a light in his eyes that Shuu knows well.

_Is this a secret?_

Their curl their fingers together. Shuu nods. Kanae inclines his head. They let go, continuing the motions of their roles in silence. Kanae cleaning. Straightening. Shuu scribbling. Calculating. 

Just as Kanae steps back from the desk, something stirs itself in Shuu. It’s like a centipede, skittering over his skin. It makes him shiver. It gives him words he wouldn’t have known to say otherwise.

“I trust you.”

Kanae stops. The light shifts. An electric hum. He smiles, brighter than even the sun.

“I know,” Kanae says.

He turns. About face. Shuu looks down, listening to Kanae’s even footsteps.

Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe.

The door closes. Shuu sets down his pencil. Places his hands over his mouth.

He smiles.

 

The world, Shuu realises as he returns to his room to ready for the evening, has changed.

One day, the world that Shuu was born into will completely disappear. It’s already started. Shuu knows this in the way he’s come to know the way the strange, numb ache in his feet spreads into prickling protests through his calves, knees and lower thighs. He doesn’t know how to express it. He doesn’t feel like he has adequate words. As he wrote in his part of a dual letter with Kanae to Yuma earlier the month:

    I used to think I was good at words, and I am, at least for the things I went to school. You must understand: I don’t know what to say or to do. We have talked about it before, how we were better in the war. Mairo’s doing well for himself now, but, as we said, he is different. We are happy for him, of course, but it does remind me, too, that I am a bit lost.

Kanae had taken the letter away and sealed it before Shuu could come up with a reason to rewrite that last part. Yuma’s response to that passage, written in his terribly ugly but extremely readable block capitals, had multiple parts crossed out and rewritten:

    I think everyone is lost. You’ve been up in Bute for months now, so you haven’t seen what the cities look like. There’s so many people out of work. I see people I know in the streets. I can’t help them. I didn’t want to write to you about that because you’ve been unwell. It’s awful. That could be me. It WOULD be me, if it wasn’t for you. What did we come home to? Why did we come home? And I can only write these things in my letters to you because of who you are. No one would dare read your mail. I can trust you. I can trust Mairo, too, but our letters can be read. I miss you and Kanae so much some days it hurts.

It made Kanae cry, reading that letter. Bitter, angry tears accompanied by rattling sobs. Shuu had regretted letting Kanae read the letter, but it wouldn’t have been fair of him to keep it from Kanae. They can’t protect each other from these sorts of things. Maybe if the war hadn’t happened, Shuu would have tried, but that’s a nonsense thought. If the war hadn’t happened, nothing that exists now would be the same. 

It’s begun to rain outside. Not heavily but steadily. Shuu rustles around in his wardrobe, attempting to find a warmer dinner jacket. He doesn’t find one; it is approaching laundry day. He does, rather embarrassingly, find that his teenage collection of cabinet cards still lives wedged in the back. They aren’t even of the naughty variety like the cards of nude women nearly everyone passed around with all the hubhub of teenage secrecy at Eton. Most of them are Yoshimura’s carte de visite.

Shuu pops his head back out of the wardrobe. He looks around his bedroom, the cards in hand. He feels like laughing at himself or rushing to start a fire to burn the evidence. The latter notion is a little ridiculous. It’s just a bunch of cabinet portraits. So what if he has seven of Yoshimura?

Seven that he stole from his father’s desk over the course of seven years.

Shuu pinches the bridge of nose. Shuts his eyes. He was so dumb. He’d thought he was smart, but he was so transparent he could be jelly. Mirumo must have known. No one else would steal from his desk. Why, Shuu thinks as he shakes his head at himself and turns to put the cards picture side down on his bedside table, couldn’t he have had an obtainable crush? Rize would have been the most logical, although both she and Shuu had always been aware that they were poorly suited romantically. Even someone at school would have been preferable. Shuu had had flings, but nothing ever lasted. He compared them all to Yoshimura. Shuu’s an idiot. He could have liked anyone. He just had to choose one of his father’s oldest friends.

A horrible thought occurs: what if it had been the Baron Kamishiro?

Shuu nearly screams aloud. He snatches the cards up, opens the bedside table drawer, and shoves them in, nearly knocking over the table as he hastens to shut it. His face and neck burn even though he’s alone. He reaches up and rubs his eyes. He’s so stupid. So, so stupid.

In a sad way, this illustrates better than anything else why Shuu isn’t completely upset that the world he was born into is dying. He didn’t fit it in the first place, and he’d always known it. At the same time, he never thought to change it. He was complacent. He wasn’t overly concerned with anything outside of himself and he never thought to be. Now, the world is changing, and Shuu has no idea what to do. There are so many things he does not understand. He doesn’t know if he can change anymore than he has. He doesn’t know how to start. 

It scares him. Just like Yuma, he doesn’t know why he came home. He feels lost and irrelevant, an heir to a house he has no idea what to do in or with. Mirumo is still astute and competent, but the more accounts that Shuu goes over the more he realises his father needs Shuu. He doesn’t just need the influence that Shuu can curry though the Army or the relationships Shuu has with his contemporaries. He needs someone to start shouldering some of the family’s activities, watching the flow of money and meeting people in his stead. He is aware of it as he left Shuu in charge of the house for the first time the past month and half. He told Shuu on his birthday, which was very subdued.

“It is not very taxing,” Mirumo had said at the intimate birthday dinner, which had still included a roast beef that Shuu nearly threw up and a chocolate cake he’d barely stomached. “I know you are capable of it.”

Shuu opted to forget the rest of that day. It wasn’t important. It really isn’t very taxing. Shuu was brought up as soon as he left nursery as the sole heir; he could balance the major bank books by the time he was out of shorts. He knows the heritage and family trees, shields and clans and mon. He knows how to be polite and charming and how to banter lightly without saying anything at all. He can ride. Fence. Shoot.

_Aidez-moi_

He sits down on his bed. He wraps his arms around himself, tilting forward until he presses his forehead against his thighs. His heart hammers in his ears.

_heart is strong enough for that_

He isn’t ready. For any of it. He never was. 

It’s how Matsumae finds him when she comes into his room to inform him that she has prepared his reception room. Shuu forces himself to unfold himself as she hovers in the doorway, the light from the fire and lamps in the reception room framing her. 

“I’m fine,” Shuu whispers because he must be. “I just need a moment to get dressed.”

Matsumae inclines her head. Steps out, leaving the door open. Shuu runs his hands through his hair. He stands up, moving to the dressing table. The light is only just enough to allow him to fix his hair. He wipes at his face with a handkerchief he’d left lying on the surface. He folds it and sets it aside next to the shaving bowl. He squints at himself in the mirror. He’s never been particularly gifted on the facial hair front. There isn’t a five o’clock shadow.

There’s a light knock on the door frame.

“Should I show Mister Kaneki here?”

Shuu breathes out. Looks down. His hands are splayed over the table’s surface.

“What time is it?”

“Just past eight-thirty.”

Shuu looks up. He looks haggard. Wan. Thin. Worse than he did in the war. He turns away. To Matsumae. She stands in the doorway, gold at her back.

“Yes,” he says, straightening up. “Please show him in.”

 

The setting is strong for an evening tray. Eliza has made a very generous arrangement of biscuits. Plain, chocolate, and her newest experiment that puts candied orange peels into shortbread. Kaneki goes immediately for the shortbread. Shuu swirls the wine that Matsumae pours them, pretending to concentrate on the aroma and initial in the mouth sensations. He lingers on the aftertaste, pretending not to watch how eagerly Kaneki nibbles at the shortbread. The way it lights his eyes in delight.

“It’s perfect.”

Matsumae does not smile. She pours Kaneki’s glass, inclining her head to his instinctive, infusive gratitude before retreating. Shuu sets his wine glass down on the table, settling back in the armchair and resting his hands on the arms. He looks to the fire, watching Kaneki taste the wine out of the corner of his eye.

“What do you think?”

It startles Kaneki slightly. He sets the glass down, reaching up briefly to cover his mouth as he uses his tongue to clean a bit of wine off of his lips. His cheeks are a light, warm pink.

“It’s really wonderful,” Kaneki says, looking straight at Shuu as he lowers his hand. “I love everything I’ve eaten here.”

Shuu is smiling before he realises it. “I’m glad,” he says.

They fall into a companionable silence. Neither of them drink very quickly, likely equally aware their physical conditions wouldn’t be kind to them for it. Kaneki makes short work the shortbread before starting to nibble on some of the chocolate biscuits. Shuu allows himself his usual habit of breaking his biscuits into quarters. It’s not playing with food. He used to just shove things in his mouth. He doesn’t really understand what it is.

“I wanted to thank you,” Kaneki says suddenly, making Shuu look away from his third biscuit, “for hiring Hide.”

For a moment, Shuu doesn’t understand. When it clicks, he blinks, no less confused.

“Mister Nagachika?” he asks, setting two quarters of biscuit down on his plate. “It was my father who hired him.”

Kaneki shrugs. He looks into his glass, swirling the wine. He has about a third of the glass left. The red makes lazy loops up and down the curves of the glass. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says, looking up again; he smiles, teeth clenched. “You—your family hired his entire company. Sure, they have to travel, but it’s better than –” 

He breaks off. Swallows. He looks down into his glass. Shuu looks away as well. Into the fire. He thinks about Yuma’s letter. His hasty, messy block capitals. Yuma told Kanae that he learned to write while working with his mother and siblings in a garment factory. He carried loads to and from wealthy houses for five years until he joined the army. They’d been playing cards with Mairo while Shuu puzzled over the wording of a condolence letter. They were drinking, which was probably the only reason that Yuma said so much about himself and asked the question he did. 

“How did you end up a servant?”

Kanae had frozen staring at his cards. Shuu had looked up, pen bleeding on the paper of the letter. Mairo’s eyes shot back and forth from Kanae to Shuu to Yuma.

“Yuma –” Mairo started.

“Kanae –” Shuu started.

“You’re obviously highborn,” Yuma said as Kanae looked up from his cards. “The Lieutenant calls you ‘cousin’.”

“We are,” Kanae said, and then smiled, a very small, sweet thing. “There are a lot of things that aren’t relevant anymore. The Lieutenant is my beloved cousin. That is how we are.”

If it wasn’t for the tragedy of the von Rosewald, things would have been different. Shuu knows for certain now that Kanae and him would have been matched. It’s a faintly bizarre thought with all that has happened. Brought to financial and political ruin by the Washuu, Kanae’s father committed suicide. Shuu isn’t entirely sure of what exactly happened to Kanae’s mother and older brothers, although he is aware that they are dead. It’s one of the few topics that neither Mirumo nor Kanae have volunteered. Perhaps when Mirumo retires and only then if it is somehow relevant to business. Otherwise, it is Kanae’s story to tell. 

Kaneki’s voice draws Shuu back.

“Hide wrote me while he was here,” he says, very softly. “That he was happy. Working here. He said this place is like Heaven. I don’t know if he told you that. I don’t think so—that would be unprofessional—, but I’m telling you. Because. In, in the, the, the… Hide. And Hinami. You haven’t met her, but… They were the only ones who wrote to me.”

Shuu looks up. To Kaneki who is watching him. The fire crackles.

“I’m glad,” Shuu says, and he thinks he is smiling. “I enjoyed talking with him. He made Matsumae laugh.”

It makes Kaneki smile, too. It’s a wide smile that dimples his cheeks and lights his eyes. Shuu has the strange urge to reach out. Cup Kaneki’s cheeks. Something of this must show on his face because Kaneki focuses. He doesn’t stop smiling, but his gaze shifts. Shuu swallows.

Opens his mouth.

“By the river,” he says, “you asked me a question.”

Kaneki blinks. Breathes in.

“Yes.”

The armchairs are close. Shuu has a large fireplace, but both he and Kanae, who regularly occupy the armchairs, chill easily. Matsumae had not moved the chairs apart in preparation for the evening. Kaneki had not commented on it and had not hesitated at all to sit down. The table holding the wine and biscuits sides slightly behind them. They are, with very little effort, close enough to touch.

“I think of you,” Shuu says, “when I watch the sky.”

The kiss hurts. Kaneki’s teeth knock and nearly break the skin of Shuu’s lips. He knocks the table slightly, although not enough that anything spills. Shuu fumbles, attempting to orientate himself as Kaneki opens his mouth. His fingers scrabble until they fist themselves in the lapels of Shuu’s evening jacket. He presses his palms against Shuu’s chest. Pushes himself back. They’re both breathing, hard, unsteady gasps.

Kaneki’s eye is nearly black. “Do you know what kind of torture I go through, attempting to paint you?” he asks, rhetorically, rapidly, rashly. “How do I paint someone I could never hope to capture?”

If Shuu really thinks about it, it’s not a romantic statement at all. Then again, as they begin to stand together, hands wandering and clawing with as much finesse as animals, this isn’t romantic. They’re not romantic. The world they live in is beyond the romantic stories that Shuu once adored and held to be his standard. This isn’t some myth.

This is real.

It burns through Shuu’s skin. His muscles, bones, ligaments. It’s been flickering, low embers that somehow spark up even when he isn’t tending it. It’s not a hearth but a wildfire. Messy, hasty, and even a little ugly but so, so real.

They end up, scrambling, shuddering, in Shuu’s room. It’s only once they’re inside and in the dark that Shuu realises he has to stop. He goes back into the reception room to get a light for his lamps while Kaneki starts the bedroom fire. When Shuu gets back, Kaneki is gazing at Shuu’s bed. He looks up as Shuu sets about lighting the lamps.

“Is this…” and he trails off for a moment, clearly awkward. “Did you sleep in this as a child?”

Shuu nearly lights his shirt cuff on fire. “Ah,” he says, hastening to finish with the lamp and blow out the match. “Yes.”

Kaneki’s face screws up briefly. It’s really cute. Shuu laughs a little, leaning to put the match aside.

They start again. Slower this time. Shuu runs a hand through Kaneki’s hair, careful not to disturb the eyepatch. They stand next to warming fire, touching, slipping fingers under collar, between buttons. Shuu is suddenly hungry, a sensation he hasn’t felt in so long he’d begun to fear he’d forgotten it. They begin to strip, deep ragged breathes and motions halfway between urgent and unhurried. Shuu throws his undershirt behind himself to his dressing table out of habit.

He turns back.

Kaneki has just started to remove his trousers.

A memory of a high whistle.

Shuu realises in the same moment that Kaneki does what is about to happen.

“Oh,” Kaneki breathes, and he fumbles with the flaps of his trousers, half-undone. “We… We don’t –”

There’s something intense, something completely insane that takes hold of Shuu. His blood pounds against his ears. His heart rattles in his ribs. He is suddenly so, so tired of this. 

“No,” he says.

It might be too loud, but this is his house, his domain, and he will be damned if he lets everything be dictated by things done unto him. Shuu undoes his own belt. Drops it. Undoes his trousers. Steps out of them. The warm air feels like ice. Shuu straightens up. Trousers in hand. He looks up. 

“Oh,” Kaneki whispers.

He doesn’t look away. He looks horrified and upset and more than a little disgusted, but he doesn’t look away. Shuu folds his trousers. Sets them on the dressing table. He sits down in the chair. Begins undoing his sock garters and removing his socks. Kaneki breathes in. It’s not quite a gasp. That’s the worst of it. There’s nothing to say. 

The bravery that Shuu had been infused with a moment before curdles. Crumbles. He rests his hands on his knees. Breathes in. 

A whistle.

Touch. Fingertips in his hair. A hand over his on his right knee. Shuu can’t open his eyes. He hears himself make a ragged sound. There’s a press. Light and careful. Warm. Skin that isn’t his against his legs. 

Kaneki rests his left cheek against Shuu’s right. Warm. He is so warm.

“My fern soldier.”

And that is when Shuu knows:

He loves him. 

It makes him want to cry even more than he already is. He thinks of the roaring biplanes made when they flew close enough over the top of trenches they could take a man’s head off. He thinks of watching carrier pigeons in their coops and watching the keepers counting how many made it back. He thinks of weather balloons overhead, of launching grenades up and away, of so many hours, days, weeks spent wondering if Kaneki had seen the same things. The same sky.

He’d been so scared because he was in love.

It made no sense, but the people that Shuu falls in love with don’t seem to. They don’t follow appropriate patterns, but Shuu never has. He never used to care. But now

Now –

“ _Mon oiseau_ ,” Shuu whispers, chokes, screams.

He is in love. Kaneki tastes like chocolate, one of the few things that Shuu can taste at all anymore. He loves chocolate. He loves sweet things. He loves how Kaneki kisses him back, soft but insistent and so, so sure. It’s a certainty he didn’t know before. That he never really owned. Nothing has ever been like this. No one will ever be like this. And Shuu loves him. Ardently. Truly. Different from anything else in the world.

They make their way to the bed. Clothing gets lost messily on the floor along the way. All that survives is Kaneki’s eyepatch. They tear at the bed to muss the covers, fumbling with each other. It’s hasty. Uncoordinated. Shuu has never been so aroused in his life. 

They crash together on the sheets. A pillow ends up awkwardly under Shuu’s left shoulder. Kaneki’s feet are tangled in the unseasonal duvet. They twine their fingers together, shifting on Shuu’s bed until Kaneki pulls back. His expression is intense, his eye focused and dark.

“How?” Kaneki murmurs.

Shuu pauses. It occurs to him that has never thought about how to have sex since being gassed. He used to think about sex almost as often as he thought about myths and Latin. Since being gassed and aside from Kaneki, sex became a faint notion, nebulous and distressing, so, as with so many things, he stopped thinking about it. Despite how obsessively he thought of Kaneki, it was never beyond what they had had that late afternoon. It must show on his face because Kaneki’s expression shifts. Softens.

“Ah,” he says, apologetic.

They kiss again. It’s familiar, safe territory. They slowly tumble this time, lying much as they were in the morning by the river. The bed, of course, is much softer, and it’s much warmer despite their nakedness. There isn’t the confusion nor the irritation of clothing. Shuu breaks the kiss. Pulls back. Kaneki looks at him from the pillow. His eyepatch is slightly askew, thick, snarled scarring becoming visible. For the first time, he doesn’t reach up to cover it. 

“I don’t have any oil.”

Kaneki’s lips twitch, his good eye crinkling. “Are we –” he starts before chuckling, flushing slightly. “Do you want –”

He can’t finish, turning bright red. It’s adorable. Shuu reaches out. Presses kisses to Kaneki’s cheek, lips, chin. 

“Maybe,” Shuu murmurs; he feels himself smiling before he can stop himself. “And if we do, I have a lot of medicinal ointment.”

Kaneki shoves him in the shoulder, head dipping forward to rest against Shuu’s neck and collar as he gasps in hoarse, shocked laughter. Shuu grins, letting his chin rest in Kaneki’s hair. 

“You’re awful,” Kaneki chokes, right hand gripping Shuu’s left shoulder as he laughs. “You should be forbidden to open your mouth.”

It’s instinct to roll them over. Kaneki squawks in surprise. Shuu uses the distraction to shimmy down until he rests on his elbows and his knees, framing Kaneki’s waist and thighs. His knees don’t appreciate it, but the discomfort is worth it to see the way Kaneki stares at him. Open-mouthed. Eyes wide. He doesn’t attempt to change anything. Shuu licks his lips.

“Are you sure?”

“Fuck,” Kaneki says.

Shuu grins. He looks down. Kaneki is definitely interested. He stands upright and swollen. It’s very attractive. Shuu licks his lips again unconsciously. It makes Kaneki suck in a breath.

“You weren’t joking,” he murmurs.

“I –” Shuu starts, but it comes out wet; he has to swallow and clear his throat. “I don’t joke.”

“I guess not,” Kaneki mutters, spreading his legs slightly.

Shuu would laugh, but he’s rather too interested in this. He pushes himself up on his hands before settling back on his heels tentatively. It’s not comfortable at all, but at least the bed is soft. He scoots back, suddenly incredibly thankful for the size of his bed. In the past, it was easiest to do this on the floor between his partner’s legs. Now, that isn’t an option unless he doesn’t want to feel his legs in the morning. This way, he’ll just be very sore.

He takes his time. Kaneki groans, leaking generously as Shuu laves experimentally at the head and slit. He tastes much as Shuu remembers, although definitely sweeter. It’s an unexpected bonus. Shuu hears himself make pleased noise, which causes Kaneki to twitch and suck in a long, shallow breath.

“Holy shit…”

The fact of the matter is that Shuu loves sucking cock. In a lot of ways, he enjoys it more than any other sexual act. There’s an intimacy to it that Shuu loves, a type of trust that doesn’t exist anywhere else. He’s done this enough, in Eton and in Christ Church and in all his youthful transgressions in between, to learn that his level of enjoyment of the act is not common. People have called him unkind things. Shuu didn’t care. They wouldn’t tell.

Maybe it’s a twisted sort of trust, the way he’d experienced before. It’s not, he’s realising, like that now. Kaneki’s fingers thread through his hair. They do not pull. Push. Rake or grab. Shuu’s heart is pounding in his ears, so he cannot hear if Kaneki is saying anything. He registers only noises. Small and breathy and little high. Kaneki is –

He pulls Shuu’s left ear. Not hard but firmly. It enables Shuu to regain himself a bit. He pulls off. Drool trickles from his lips. Kaneki stares at him, good eye huge and lips parted.

“Thank you,” Kaneki says, voice close to cracking. “But you must be in pain.”

It’s true. Shuu is only still aroused by virtue of his personal enjoyment. Physically, his body is not into his current position at all. Shuu shifts himself, sitting awkwardly down between Kaneki’s spread legs. A comical thought occurs to him.

“Would you paint this?”

Kaneki chokes. His right leg jerks as if he’s about to kick Shuu before he visibly stops himself. It somehow recentres them. Kaneki rearranges himself, motioning for Shuu to move as well. They end up in an almost mimicry of their first encounter. Kaneki balanced on Shuu’s shoulders and around his thighs. It makes Shuu start laugh a little as he looks up to Kaneki, whose eye crinkles.

“We’ll,” Kaneki says, a little hushed, “come up with something else someday.”

They have time. Four more days at least while Kaneki is here. There will be other times, too, if they want it. They have to be careful, of course. The world has not changed that much.

Shuu leans up as Kaneki reaches between them. They kiss, Shuu’s hands on Kaneki’s thighs to help him balance as he pumps them both.

For now, this is theirs.


	8. April 1919, Part 3

**Ken Kaneki** (1895-1982)  
**_The Marquess of Anstruther (III)_** April 1919

     This is the best known portrait from the series. It is noted for its frank portrayal of the wounded body and for the controversy it stirred when it was first displayed at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in 1965.

    It is the only time that outside of Kaneki’s private papers that the Marquess appears in full nude. There are erotic overtones to the painting’s setting, which features a dressing table with discarded clothes and a mirror which reflects Kaneki himself. The main focus of the painting, indicated by Kaneki’s gaze, is the Marquess’ legs and feet. Kaneki’s use of oils pays detailed attention to the scarring caused by the Marquess’ exposure to chlorine gas during the Battle of the Somme. The Marquess has hidden his face from the viewer with his hands, which indicates his discomfort and negates any erotic pleasure. 

    In his memoirs, Kaneki devoted a lengthy adage to this painting, stating: _I didn’t know what I wanted from this portrait series until I began painting this third piece. At first, I became afraid that the Marquess would not want to see me again or would even threaten sue me for such an unflattering portrayal. But when I showed him the first three portraits in late July, he was adamant that I complete this one in particular._  


       
_“It’s ugly,” I clearly remember him saying, “but it’s beautiful because it’s true.”_   


 

The summer that Shuu was twelve, he spent all of July in London with the Baron Kamishiro and Rize. It was, ostensibly, for Shuu to see the city and to meet families of his status, especially those with children similar to his age. It was during the height of London’s social Season. It was also during a period of Shuu’s life where he saw very little of his father, who was often abroad due to the growing trouble with the Rosewald and Washuu. The Kamishiro, Shuu now understands, benefitted greatly from hosting Shuu. It reflected the great trust that Mirumo had in the Baron, and it implied that Shuu and Rize were likely intended. Although Shuu hadn’t yet understood it, it also finalized Mirumo’s intent to override the previous intention of Shuu and Kanae. 

To Shuu at twelve, however, he was only concerned with three things: languages, football, and Yoshimura. These interests consciously went in that order as Shuu was very aware in some strange, absolute manner that he’d sensed that his attraction to Yoshimura must be kept secret. Not just because it was embarrassing in the youthful way that crushes can be, but because he had nothing to compare it to, not even in his books or the occasional romance serial he’d convince the maids to let him read. So, in a pattern that Shuu would come to live by the rest of his life, he concentrated on pouring himself into other subjects. Languages kept him mentally occupied. Football tired him out.

That month in London, though, Shuu didn’t have football. He didn’t really miss it. Instead, he boxed with Kamishiro most mornings, which was exciting and invigorating. He went on regular walks with Rize, accompanied by their childhood governesses as chaperones, which was much less entertaining. 

“I wish they’d go away,” Shuu said during a rare moment when their chaperones had been distracted enough that Rize and Shuu could walk far enough ahead in Hyde Park to be out of earshot. “It’s so boring.”

“We could make them,” Rize suggested, hands clasped very neatly in front of herself. 

“What?” Shuu had asked, aghast and intrigued. “How?”

They hadn’t managed it until they were back at the Kensington house. Looking back, the commotion Shuu caused in the kitchen was very unkind to the staff, but it had been the distraction needed to draw both governesses away. He’d gone back upstairs to the sitting room that adjourned Rize’s room. She had brought out a basket of fabric and several dolls.

“I trust,” she said, “you know how to play.”

Shuu stood in the doorway. He looked at the dolls. The basket. Back to Rize.

“No,” he said, suddenly feeling very uncertain and a little afraid.

“Oh,” Rize said, eyebrows drawing momentarily together before shrugging. “Well, come now. I will teach you.”

It was a very simple set up. There was Mister and Missus Yammy, their servant, Dan, and the downstairs lodger, Nellie. Mister and Missus Yammy were a well-to-do middle-class couple getting up in age and Dan and Nellie were secretly in love. There were lots of clothing for everyone to wear, and Mister Yammy had been in the Napoleonic Wars, which made exactly as much sense as Rize wanted it to.

“But then he’d be very old,” Shuu attempted to explain.

“I don’t care,” Rize answered, and they were her dolls, so that settled it.

They ended up playing together most afternoons following tea. No one stopped them, although both Rize and Shuu were aware that this was not proper behaviour. Shuu had been made to grow out of his toy soldiers a few years before, and Rize was well of the age to be made to grow out of dolls. Aside from that first time, there was almost always an adult in attendance, pretending not to be watching but observing everything of their play. Shuu and Rize ignored it as best they could, filtering out the nervous energy brought on by constant observation and continuing unperturbed. 

Together, they worked out how Nellie would cleverly contrive to meet up with Dan to share stories of their day whilst the Yammys bumbled about upstairs. There were little arguments, mostly had between the Mister and Missus, and never anything that had lasting consequences. Shuu came up with an idea that Dan should spend some of his pay on serials for Nellie, who would stay up late reading them with him. Rize started to come up with a crazy little story about pirates in the Mediterranean before it was all cut short by the end of July.

It became perhaps the most valuable exercise of that summer. It taught Shuu how to ignore people in the same room as him, and it gave him the first external building blocks for the existing foundations of his fantasy life. Before, he’d just used existing stories. When he went back to Eton and became bored during lessons, he found he could build upon them. He could imagine other events, moving off of various scenarios and playing with hypotheses. He spent much of his teenage years like that, engaged when around others but often on his own, up inside his own head. Even when he was around others, sometimes he was still up there, thinking of Yoshimura as Nestor. 

It’s these thought that Shuu wakes with at the forefront of his thoughts. He stares for a long time at the canopy of his bed. It’s dark, and he usually wakes frozen. He’s strangely warm on his left side, although he’s fallen asleep naked. 

Naked.

Shuu turns his head. He can’t see too well, but Kaneki is definitely lying next to him in bed. Still asleep from the cadence of his breathing. He’s lying on his belly. He’s trapped Shuu’s arm under his right. It’s not an insistent hold, but Shuu would not be able to move his arm without waking Kaneki up.

“I’ll go,” Kaneki had muttered after they’d both collapsed after completing.

“Rest a bit,” Shuu thinks he mumbled before falling asleep.

Apparently, Kaneki had fallen asleep, too. A part of Shuu swells with warm. He wants to roll over and gather Kaneki in his arms. Nuzzle his cheek and pepper his lips with kisses. The other part of Shuu shifts, suddenly uneasy and worried. It makes him look away. Back up to the canopy that’s too dark to see.

He is in love.

He closes his eyes. Love is beautiful. Love is dangerous. For a child brought up on a diet of stories and fantasy, this is the one practical lesson he took away. Arthur loved Guinevere, but so did Lancelot, and it brought the downfall of Camelot. Sometimes, too, love is not enough. It was Shuu’s greatest fear as a child that one day he would look in the mirror and no longer resemble his mother. Now, her renowned beauty lives only as a shadow in her scarred son.

Shuu shivers before he can stop himself. It draws a bleary noise out of Kaneki.

“What…”

Shuu opens his eyes. Stares at the canopy. Kaneki takes a long time to breathe again.

“Lord…” Kaneki starts before he shivers himself, unconsciously briefly pressing Shuu’s arm against the mattress. “I fell asleep.”

“Yes,” Shuu says, and his voice is hoarse, tongue sticky. “Don’t worry.”

A long sigh. Kaneki shifts, letting go of Shuu. It takes strength that Shuu didn’t know he had to force himself not to grab Kaneki back as he sits up. 

“I should leave.”

He should. Shuu swallows. Forces himself to open his mouth.

“Yes.”

Kaneki turns his head. It’s too dark to see the expression on his face. He doesn’t make to move.

“Do,” and the hesitation is clear in his voice, tone just before wavering, “you want me to go?”

“Please, no,” Shuu says, the words leaving his mouth like startled birds.

Neither of them move. Kaneki looks down. Shuu looks up. Thor can only take nine steps after slaying Jörmungandr. 

“I should,” Kaneki repeats, very gently.

He slides out of bed. Shuu sits up, swallowing a groan as he shifts his legs. He watches as Kaneki inches about in the dark, attempting to find his clothes. They’re scattered about the room. Shuu would be able to find them, but he’d likely have to crawl. Kaneki only saw the room briefly in light. It’s a near impossible task. 

“There’s matches –”

Kaneki bumps into the dressing table. He yelps and then starts to snort very inelegantly on his own laughter. Shuu bites his bottom lip.

“You could borrow my dressing –”

“I don’t,” Kaneki interrupts, completely amused and embarrassed, “know if I can find my way back to my rooms.”

In the end, Kaneki gets back into bed. He’s gone cold in the short time since leaving it, and Shuu uses that as an excuse to wrap his arms around Kaneki’s torso. It earns him a light shove in the shoulder. It’s Shuu’s turn to chuckle, a very self-important noise.

“Awful,” Kaneki mutters.

They doze until enough light creeps up on the horizon for Kaneki to see where almost all of his clothes are in the room except, inexplicitly for his braces. He spends a long moment in front of Shuu’s mirror, fiddling with his eyepatch. 

“Is something wrong?”

Kaneki sighs, turning around and keeping his left hand up over his eye. “I think I broke the string in my sleep,” he grumbles. “I’ve got spares…”

But they aren’t here. Shuu grimaces as he moves over to the edge of the bed. He stands up and hobbles over to his dressing table, grabbing his dressing gown and shrugging it on.

“I have bandage rolls.”

In fact, the majority of Shuu’s vanity is basic first aid items. He’s not entirely sure how this came to be, and the irony that he domestically has far more at any one time than he did when he was in the war doesn’t escape him. He takes out one of the bandage rolls. Turns to hand it to Kaneki. Freezes.

It’s poor lighting, but Kaneki has removed his hand from his eye to pull on his trousers. He’d looked up just as Shuu turned around. The scarring is dense and almost thatch-like, raised and oddly interwoven at a nearly forty-five-degree angle. The eye itself is clearly blind, glazed over in an uneven milky tone. What little is left of the iris has turned an unsettling dull red.

Kaneki swallows audibly, good eye flickering away. Down. To Shuu’s hand.

“Can I –”

The bandage roll. Shuu extends his hand. Kaneki takes it, looking down as he unravels some of it to begin wrapping around his head. Over the eye. His head is bowed. He’s gone the colour of curded milk. His hands are shaking. 

Shuu remembers, very strangely, of sitting by library while Matsumae dusted when he was nine and she had just formally joined the household fulltime at sixteen. He didn’t know her very well then, although he’d heard the mutterings of some of the senior staff that she was not from a reputable background. 

“ _Not_ a proper last name,” Mary, Shuu’s childhood favourite cook, had murmured before she’d noticed that he’d just come out one of the servant entrances to the kitchens; it gave her a fright.

Watching Matsumae dust, Shuu had mulled over Mary’s words. He knew that whatever Matsumae’s last name was likely indicated that she was illegitimate in some manner. There were other reasons, but that was the most common as far as he knew. He also knew, because of Mary’s reaction, that it was not something he was supposed to know. Shuu kept his mouth shut and turned his attention back to his book. He forgot about all of that for years.

Kaneki fumbles, attempting to tie a knot at the back of his head. Shuu moves before he realises what he is doing. Steps forward. Reaches up. His fingers touch against Kaneki’s. Their hands are cold.

“May I?”

An eternity passes. Slowly, Kaneki’s fingers slip away. His arms sink to tuck against his bare chest. Hugging himself. For warmth or for comfort or for both. Shuu does not consider. He makes a neat, secure knot of the fabric. Spends a moment to make sure none of Kaneki’s hair is stuck in it. 

_do you think what the end to a perfect day can mean to a tired heart_

Shuu withdraws his hands. They stand. Shuu with his hands in his dressing robe’s pockets. Kaneki hunched and hugging into himself. There’s a faint wail of the wind outside as light creeps in. 

“You’re,” Shuu says, the trench mumble, “going to catch a chill.”

“Yes,” Kaneki whispers.

He moves. Begins to finish getting dressed. Shuu looks back to his vanity. The open main drawer. He takes out the pot of ointment he’s currently using. Sets it on the vanity table. It stirs a thought that leaves his mouth as it occurs.

“My family doctor recommended this.”

He turns around, the ointment in hand. Kaneki is buttoning his shirt. He blinks at the pot. Looks up at Shuu. His pallor is still sickly. He looks confused and lost.

“It’s for scarring,” Shuu says, still the mumble but without any control. “I don’t know if actually helps, but it doesn’t smell awful. Kanae said he thinks it has some kind of oil in it. You may have this, if you want. I think Papa bought the company.”

Kaneki squints as he tucks his shirt into his trousers. “But you don’t know if it works?”

“No.”

He adjusts his braces. “Then why…” he starts before shaking his head slightly, looking down for a long moment before turning find his socks. “It’s kind of you to offer, but I think I’ll pass.”

Shuu nods. Sets the pot back down. He looks down. Stares at his bare feet. Kaneki had been looking at them just now. Shuu’s boots, more expensive and better made than anything aside from weapons in the trenches, had saved his feet. Pilots wear goggles. Perhaps that’s what saved Kaneki’s life.

Shuu’s bed creaks. It makes him look up to watch as Kaneki puts his socks back on. He only has his dinner jacket and shoes to put on until he’s fully dressed.

“Would you,” Shuu hears himself start to say before he can stop himself, “like me to walk you back to your room?” 

Kaneki looks up at him. His head is tilted slightly, allowing him to look directly at Shuu with his good eye. His lips twitch.

“I don’t know how to get back,” he says, self-depreciating. “Yes, please.”

Shuu nods again. He turns, moving to his wardrobe. Today is laundry day, but he only needs to find clean trousers and socks. It doesn’t matter if they match. By the time he’s pulled those on sitting at the vanity, Kaneki is ready. He looks up from contemplating his hands. Framed by the gigantic bed, head and eye wrapped in bandage, Shuu is struck by how ugly Kaneki appears. It doesn’t change his feelings for Kaneki. It makes something deep and heavy inside of his chest hurt. 

He suddenly understands a little bit of what Matsumae must have felt that first time she unwrapped Shuu’s legs.

He swallows. Tries to anchor himself. He remembers raising the French soldier’s gun.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

It’s not what he means to say. Kaneki stares at him. Shocked. Wide-eyed. He’s so pale that Shuu can see veins in his cheeks, jaws, neck.

“It’s not your fault,” Kaneki says, a warble. 

Shuu opens his mouth. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t have anything to say. He doesn’t know the words he wanted to say. He never did.

There’s a knock on the bedroom door.

“Master Shuu?” Matsumae’s voice is only slightly raised; it is an explosion. “Are you awake?”

Kaneki turns to stone. Shuu sucks in a breath. Wayland the Smith hammers in his ears.

“Yes,” he says, and there is no way to tell what tone of voice he is using except that it is audible. “I am occupied at the moment. Is it morning already?”

A beat. “I have brought coffee,” she says, unreadable; the door is still closed. “Should I bring an extra cup?”

Shuu stares at Kaneki, who stares back at him. Kaneki does not move. A statue. 

There is no right answer. “Yes,” Shuu says, screams. “Thank you.”

Silence. Shuu counts to ten, the number of paces it would take for Matsumae to cross the reception room and back out into the hall. Kaneki stares at him, unblinking. 

_Aidez-moi_

“Would you like to join me for coffee?”

A comedy of manners. Kaneki twitches. Looks down. Grimaces. 

“Your housekeeper?”

“Don’t worry.”

Kaneki looks up. Shuu realises belated that it’s the same conversation they had once before. He watches as Kaneki takes a deep breath. Shoulders bunching. Exhale. Shoulders falling.

“Alright,” he whispers.

They have coffee together, sitting in the same chairs as the night before. Matsumae steps out. Kanae does not appear.

They arrange to meet for a portrait sitting after lunch to take advantage of as much natural light in the library as possible. 

Kaneki leaves with Matsumae when she comes to take away the empty pot. They shake hands. Say polite farewells.

Shuu sits in front of the fire.

It is very quiet.

 

The morning is spent working on finalising arrangements in Paris.

This mostly consists of Shuu writing up invitations and responding to invitations. He works through the two stacks methodically. He includes a greeting to those he has met before, even if he hasn’t seen some people since he was in shorts. There are ten received invitations from people he has never met. 

“I remember the Johannes family,” Kanae says as Shuu hunts through his father’s desk for more ink; his father’s organisational skills are a disaster. “The wife is very kind. She allowed me to watch her embroider.”

Shuu looks up. Around the back of his chair. Kanae is looking out the window and down into the courtyard. He doesn’t look up.

“This invitation is from a ‘Tycho’.”

“The third son,” Kanae says to the glass.

Shuu turns back to the invitation. It’s not very good paper, and the address is for the Johannes’ family’s shop in the 13th arrondissement. Shuu can only guess that the family has fallen on hard times. 

“He’s not much older than you,” Kanae says, just behind Shuu’s left shoulder; he’s drawn himself away from the window to look at the invitation. “He and Arnolt were to go to university together. They used to exchange letters; I remember my brother kept them in his treasure box.”

Despite himself, Shuu finds his eyebrows raising as he looks to Kanae, who simply shrugs, a bland look on his face. There’s a long silence before Kanae’s gaze moves back to the invitation.

“Should I –”

“Accept it,” Kanae says, stepping away to move towards the couch. “They wrote to each other in code. I’m sure it was easy to break, but I was still very young.”

It’s a task, but Shuu makes himself look back at the invitation. To his pen, which he needs to clean now that he has more ink. That’s far more than Kanae usually says regarding his family. 

“Do you want to invite him to the house or would you like to see his shop?”

The sound of the coffee pot. “Invite him for dinner.”

Shuu hums. He listens to Kanae pour more coffee. Sit down. They pass in relative silence, interrupted only a couple time when Kanae asks Shuu to fix some of his Latin grammar on the passage of Cicero. Kanae has recently decided to attempt to pick up his education again. He’d stopped just after the start of the war to work fulltime as part of the household. Shuu was only briefly home during that time, occupied at university and with the social life in London. He wonders how much he missed.

It edges towards lunch. It’s potato and leek soup, which never used to appeal to Shuu. Now he finds himself fairly keen on it, particularly the way that the kitchen has been preparing it lately with less cream but more spices. He isn’t actually sure if he likes the spices. What matters is that he can taste it. He wonders if Matsumae or Kanae has spoken with the kitchen staff recently. He’d told them not to change anything on his account, but someone has done something. He shouldn’t have complained. He – 

“Is,” Matsumae’s voice filters in, “something wrong with the soup?”

Shuu starts. The spoonful of soup he’d been staring at spills back into the bowl. He was doing that thing again. Going off into his head. He sets the spoon down in the bowl. Reaches up to rub his eyes.

“No.”

He wants to go lie down. Pull the covers over his head and curl up into a ball. He can’t. He arranged to sit for Kaneki in the afternoon. In the library. Shuu sits back in his desk chair, his palms over his eyes.

“Matsumae.”

“Yes?”

Shuu presses the nails of his fingers to the line of his hair. “Should I write to Miss Rize to invite her to Paris?”

Kanae chokes and begins coughing wetly. Matsumae moves, likely to give Kanae a handkerchief. Shuu doesn’t move. That was not what Shuu had meant to ask at all. He has very little idea of where that came from. 

“Do you,” Matsumae asks, very unreadable, “wish to see her?”

Shuu doesn’t know. If this had been a few months ago, he couldn’t have imagined even contemplating this. Their courtship had been clumsy at best, although now Shuu wonders if it was really as bad he thought it had been. It had been magnified by many aspects of himself and his perception of the world that he no longer cares about. He doesn’t know if Rize is the same. He realises now that they never really knew each other except for when they’d had time when they were twelve and ten playing with dolls.

“It would be a good idea,” Matsumae says, somewhat hesitantly; she’s overstepping her station to offer the advice even though Shuu asked for it. “As far as I know, she has not accepted any other suitors. She is twenty-two, I believe.”

Twenty-two and not associated with anyone in particular, if Shuu remembers the gossip from the Hogmanay party correctly. Shuu drops his hands from his eyes. Opens them. Matsumae has sat down next to Kanae on the couch. They’re both watching him. Kanae’s eyebrows are drawn together, lips thin. Matsumae is unreadable.

“A good idea,” Shuu repeats.

“Yes,” Matsumae says.

Shuu looks back down at his soup. Picks the spoon up. He eats several spoonfuls without looking back up. 

Matsumae clears her throat. “Would you like me to draft the invitation?”

“Yes,” Shuu says, stirring the soup. “It would be good to have her and the Baron.”

Matsumae takes the lunch tray away. Shuu stands up very carefully, teeth gritted to keep from groaning. When he looks up, Kanae eyes him from the couch. Arms crossed. Shuu is fairly sure that Matsumae will have informed Kanae that Kaneki was in his bedroom this morning, else they would have taken coffee together as usual. They stare at each other for a long moment.

“What?”

Kanae shakes his head. Stands up. He smiles slightly before deliberately sobering. 

“I’m going out to the greenhouses this afternoon.”

Shuu squints. Kanae doesn’t react. Shuu sighs. Kanae’s lips twitch.

“Do you want me to cut some roses –”

“Get out,” Shuu says without any heat.

 

At one in the afternoon, Shuu goes to join Kaneki in the library. He announces himself, which makes Kaneki looks up from his set up by the western windows. They exchange polite greetings. He’s got an eyepatch on again and is wearing an artist’s smock. It’s clean, although there’s evidence of past stains on the sleeves and curiously over Kaneki’s butt. Shuu exercises all the self-control that he knows not to stare.

“Where should I sit?”

Kaneki pours paint thinner into a tin that he places on the tarp that’s been laid out to the save the floor; the carpet has been removed. “By the window,” he says, a bit distant in thoughtfulness. “In profile to start.”

The armchair that usually stays near to the fireplace on the other side of the library has been moved here. There’s a blanket folded on the seat for Shuu to keep warm as if he is an old man. Even Mirumo is not at the point where he is constantly cold. Shuu shakes out the blanket before sitting down with a sigh. It would be embarrassing if it wasn’t a necessity. 

Kaneki has brought an easel and a small trunk of supplies. Oils. Palate. Brushes. A number of other things that Shuu is not familiar with, although he’s sat a couple of portraits in the past. Once when he was five with his father and once when he was ten. It was too much trouble to get him to sit still and stay in one place after that. 

“How are you feeling?”

Shuu looks away from his intense contemplation of Kaneki’s supplies. Kaneki stands with his palate, but he hasn’t added any paint to it. He watches Shuu quietly. Nervously. It is very quick, but Kaneki’s gaze flicks down.

Ah.

“Sore,” Shuu admits as Kaneki raises his gaze again. “But I deem it worth the trouble.”

It’s not the right answer. Perhaps there isn’t a right answer. Kaneki’s face screws up unhappy and upset. He shifts the palate in front of himself like a shield.

“You shouldn’t,” he says before he catches himself.

It sits like a rock while Kaneki puts together his palate. Shuu understands why Kaneki stopped himself. It sounded too much like an order, and Kaneki is not in a position to order Shuu around under any circumstance. He does not understand, however, why Kaneki said it. Did he not enjoy last night? 

The terror of that thought is the only reason Shuu can bring himself to speak.

“I don’t understand.”

Kaneki mixes colours. The muscles in his jaw move. He doesn’t seem upset anymore, but there’s a sadness that Shuu doesn’t understand.

“You’re reckless,” he says before his lips twist, an unpleasant look. “So am I.”

Shuu feels himself blink. He looks away. Down at his hands over the blanket covering his lap. His trousers. Socks. Shoes. Knees. Legs. Feet. There are layers and layers between them.

“I’ve never thought it like that.”

Shuu is not a reckless person by nature. He was brought up to prize self-control. It’s not the same as knowing how to follow directions, although he learned to do that in order to excel at school, navigate society, and obey commands. It’s knowing how to hold his tongue when he has to, and knowing what subjects to avoid talking about even with the people he trusts. He was taught the proper ways to present himself, which he used to excel at but will now have to remaster in Paris. 

Because of that need for remastery, he sees where Kaneki would think he is reckless because Kaneki is a prime example of why it is necessary. With Kaneki, all of Shuu’s self-control seems to break down. He’s fallen in love outside of his station, outside of acceptability, outside of anything that could have been planned. It is, in its lowest form, bad business. There is no benefit that Shuu can draw from the situation that will outweigh the risks. 

Shuu simply wants this. He wants to love Kaneki. He wants, even though he knows he shouldn't.

They don’t talk for a while. Kaneki settles in to his work, alternating between spending long moments at the canvas and staring at Shuu. He doesn’t request that Shuu remain facing in profile to him, so Shuu alternates between looking out the window and watching Kaneki work. 

It’s a new experience in more than one way. Although Shuu had a fairly varied education, there was never a particular focus on art. He’d learned to sketch and to produce rudimentary drawings for his botany and natural science classes. Shuu hadn’t continued with any of it in university and certainly not during the war. Mairo had sketched often when they went new places. Shuu had thought he was very good, but it is apparently nothing of the level of the rest of Mairo’s family. Shuu doesn’t care. One of the few things he actually put into his diary from 1918 was Mario’s sketch of Yuma and Kanae both asleep with their mouths wide open.

Kaneki, with his tools, moves with a thoughtful sort of certainty. He doesn’t rush, which had always been Shuu’s problem with his sketches. It was hard for him to concentrate. It seems to be the opposite for Kaneki. He’s more focused now than Shuu has ever seen him. It reminds Shuu that he barely knows Kaneki. 

After a long time, Kaneki breathes out a sigh. He sets down his palate and brush to stop and stretch. Shuu shifts, leaning forward to rub his legs to stop them from going numb. 

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Oh,” Kaneki sighs, rubbing his eye with his smock’s sleeve. “Yes, please.”

Shuu stands up. Walks to the entrance to ring the bell pull. When he returns, Kaneki has sat down on the tarp. Shuu blinks. Looks around.

“Do you want –”

“No,” Kaneki says, stretching his legs out in front of himself with a long sigh. “This is more comfortable.”

It’s incredibly informal, but it’s rich of Shuu to judge. He lets himself remain standing. Tuck his hands in his trouser pockets. He has a sudden craving for a cigarette. Kanae and he have both run out as Kanae forgot to pick up the last time he went into town. Neither of them are particularly heavy smokers, but Shuu is aware that they shouldn’t smoke as much as they do. It was something to do in the war. They’re both aware that it bothers Matsumae. 

Kaneki breathes out a long sigh. 

“I think,” he says, smiling a little as he looks up at the ceiling, “I know why Hide likes working here so much.”

It makes Shuu smile a little, too. “Why?”

Kaneki looks at him. His smile doesn’t change. It’s wistful.

“He doesn’t like the city. Hide’s always had this dream about moving out to a farm and living off the land.”

“He wants to be a farmer?” 

“No,” and Kaneki’s smile stretches, more amused than before. “I made the mistake of giving him _Walden_.”

Shuu feels his eyebrows furrow. It’s an expression that Yuma got endless amusement out of because it apparently him and Kanae look exactly alike. 

“So he wants to move to America?”

“No,” Kaneki says, rolling his eye. “He thinks he could recreate something like that here.”

It makes Shuu snort. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I know,” and Kaneki’s expression turns very fond, “but it’s a nice dream.”

Shuu doesn’t know if he agrees. Something of that must show on his face because Kaneki straightens. Looks at Shuu questioningly.

“Did you not like _Walden_?”

“I didn’t dislike it,” Shuu says, a little slowly. “It’s very nice prose, but people take it far too seriously.”

For some reason this makes Kaneki laugh. His shoulders relax. He looks down at his legs. Shuu can tell he’s wriggling his toes in his shoes. He reaches out and picks up one of his brushes. A thin one with stubby end.

“I heard from Hide you’re going to Paris in a couple weeks.”

“Yes.”

Kaneki turns the brush over in his fingers. Plays with the bristle end. 

“He said it’s to do with the Peace Conference.”

Shuu breathes out. “Yes.”

Kaneki glances up at him. It’s an odd expression. Simultaneously careful and intense. It is very bold. 

“Do you ever think,” Kaneki asks, very softly, “what it would be like if not for the war?”

Shuu doesn’t have time to respond. Eliza arrives with coffee and biscuits. She does well to hide her curiosity at Kaneki’s set up and sitting position as she sets the tray down on the reading table that’s been moved to the side. Shuu accepts his coffee whilst standing. Kaneki stands up to accept his as well. He sits back down on the ground after Eliza leaves. Shuu holds his cup close to his chest. 

“There was a little money,” Kaneki says, not looking up from his feet, “for my education and upkeep. I… did well, and I won a scholarship, so I could study art. Several people I met at school were into flying, and they used to take me out with them on the weekend. When the war started, they all signed up, so I…”

He stops. Stares at his feet. Shuu watches him blink rapidly, fingers gripping his cup so hard it might crack.

“I don’t know,” Kaneki whispers. 

He sets his cup down. Looks up to Shuu. He swallows. Licks his lips. There’s that boldness. A recklessness. Shuu understands now.

“What about you?”

_a heart strong enough_

Shuu looks up. The ceiling is carved with angels. He closes his eyes.

“I don’t know.”

He’d be a very different person. He’d had different interests. Different values. Different dreams. He would have never met Yuma or Mairo. He would have never met Kaneki. He doesn’t know what kind of relationship he and Kanae would have. If he and Matsumae would be able to trust each other. If he’d understand Mirumo at all. 

Shuu hadn’t cared about anyone before the war half as much as he cared about himself.

His lips twist. A smile or a grimace or a bearing of teeth: he does not know. 

“I think,” he says, “I would be very lonely.”

He isn't, he understands, lonely now. He is surrounded by people. They care for him. They love him. 

He needs to learn how to love them back.


	9. May 1919, Part 1

**From the private holdings of the Tsukiyama Family Lord Shuu Tsukiyama, the 8th Duke of Bute:**

Compiler note: Unlike his predecessors, the 8th Duke did not keep regular personal diaries after the Great War. He maintained a very peculiar filing system that began at the very end of April 1919. Personal and business correspondence was generally filed together, but his correspondence with the artist, Ken Kaneki, was hand bound every six to eight months. Each bound set is numbered as are the letters within it. This mirrors Kaneki’s own system for the letters he received from the 8th Duke, although Kaneki famously cut every instance of the phrase “I miss you” from the letters he received to create the papier-mâché archway to his last art exhibition.

Below is the first letter in the collection.

 

       
_30 April 1919_   


     Dear Lord Tsukiyama,

    I am so happy that you like the sketch of Henri and Pompom with the sheep. I must apologise again for my mercurial nature. I know that I was not the best company at times, particularly the last evening of my stay. Our argument, as you said, was not necessary. I know that you must make your upcoming trip, which is why I have, as you suggested, sent this letter on to your Kensington residence. Despite the ongoing disruption of mail service, it is my hope that you will receive it before you depart for Paris for the duration of the summer.

    I will, however, restate my concern regarding your health. The influenza could return. Summer in Paris is much harsher than it is here in Scotland, and you yourself admitted that you noticed illness spreads in the heat. You assured me that you are not going to be engaging in unnecessary travel, and you reminded me rightly that it is not ‘as if’ you will be returning to the trenches. That was not, and was never, my point. I only wish that you would be more careful for you are not. You are [ _scribbled out_ ] stubborn. 

    We both are. We are very different people, but I feel we share this, and that is why I am repeating my opinion. 

    Be careful. Take care of yourself. 

    Yours truly,  
Ken Kaneki

 

The sun came out, Shuu clearly remembers, the day after Kanae was shot.

Shuu hadn’t slept. He couldn’t have. Command had recalled his platoon. Told them all they’d done a good job. Shuu had stayed up through the night filling out paperwork. Writing letters. He talked to his commanding officers. He talked even more to Mairo and Yuma. He doesn’t remember what about exactly, but it was straightforward. Nothing alarming, at least not in the context of the situation. 

Only Mairo and Yuma looked at him oddly. It was how he knew that they both knew about Kanae. They said nothing. Yuma had not told, and Kanae was on a ship back to Dover. It was not a life-threatening injury. Kanae was not in danger of dying. He had probably not been found out. Shuu only knew this was likely because, as Kanae’s commanding officer, he would have been informed. Probably arrested. There was, therefore, nothing to say. 

He remembered the French soldier again. Putting a bullet in his head.

He stopped. He looked around. He’d been assigned a private room in a requisitioned house. He sat down on a chair by the window. Turned to look out at people milling around. He recognized a few people, but most were strangers. He watched men from the Chinese Labour Corps unloading sacks from supply trucks. No one else was looking at them. It was as if they weren’t there.

_Aidez-moi_

Shuu felt abruptly sick. He staggered to his feet only to be forced to lie down on the ground. He thinks he spent the rest of the afternoon until early the next morning curled up and shaking. He missed dinner. He’d never done that before and, again, no one commented. There was nothing to say. 

So Shuu said nothing. He swallowed everything that bubbled up. Bottled it in his gut, which made him constantly nauseous. He folded his heart up and up and up until there were long hours where he couldn’t feel anything at all. He thought it was a blessing. He thought that it was strength. He thought that, in this, he could win. 

He’d deluded himself into believing anything in this world could be won at all.

Looking back on it, Shuu understands now that something had gone wrong with his nerves. It wasn’t the same as being cowardly nor was it related to all the other things that have always been different about him. He was worried about his platoon’s casualty statistic. He worried about Kanae, who recuperated back in Blighty, Matsumae writing his letters. He worried about his letters home to Mirumo, each one faker than the last. He should have done more. Done better. But he didn’t and people suffered for his weakness.

He was a failure. A liar. False. 

Shuu knows now that Mairo and Yuma had known something was wrong. They spent more time together even when they didn’t have to. Shuu had thought that it was because they missed Kanae. The three of them had become fast friends in a way that Shuu never has managed with people. They chatted with Shuu, something they hadn’t done in the past. Attempted to engage him in conversations outside of work. If Shuu had been able to do anything more than deaden the ugly things that made him increasingly nauseous, he would have noticed how uncertain they were. Worried about getting in trouble if they overstepped. Worried enough to reach out anyways.

“Do you have a favourite song?”

It was a rainy, hazy morning in early June. Shuu wasn’t feeling well. He wasn’t sleeping. Could barely eat. His feet were rocks and his legs threatened to buckle under him whenever he moved. He wasn’t about to let anyone know. He forced himself to get out of bed, eat enough so that he wouldn’t faint, and stand for the long periods required of him. He had to. He couldn’t let anyone know that something had gone seriously wrong. He had been, as was his habit, practicing sword-work in the courtyard. He had to stop to respond. The sudden change in activity made him light-headed.

“Song?”

“Yeah,” Yuma said, standing several feet away in parade rest; in Kanae’s absence, he’d taken up batman duties again.

Shuu breathed out. Sheathed his sword. He wiped at his face with a ratty handkerchief.

“I like Chopin and Bartók –” 

“Dunno who that is,” Yuma said, scowling rather mightily before he shook his head; his expression twisted into something less angry and more strained. “I mean, stuff you can sing. Music hall stuff.”

“Oh,” Shuu said.

He hadn’t gone to the music hall. It hadn’t been allowed, and, even when he went off to university, it hadn’t been something any of his cohort were into. He only knew a few songs, mostly those that people sang when they were drunk.

“I wish I had someone to love me,” he started, trying his best to remember the tune. “Someone to call me his doo-doo-li-doo –”

Yuma burst out laughing. It wasn’t a happy sound. It was shocked noise that bordered on hysterical. It doubled him over and nearly into the dirt. His arms wrapped around his stomach. Tears escaped his eyes. 

“That?” he gasped between wheezing squeals of laughter. “ _That_?”

Shuu didn’t know what to say. He felt, suddenly, very tired. He looked down. His legs felt at once weak and full of lead. He couldn’t feel his feet, but, during the war, he rarely could. They were too cold, he rationalised. It made no sense in the summer.

_call me his_

At some point, Yuma stopped laughing. Eventually, Shuu looked up. Yuma was watching him, lips pinched and eyes uncertain. They were lucky no one had noticed. It wouldn’t do for anyone to know that Shuu allowed Yuma such a liberty as to laugh at his commanding officer. 

“I’m sorry,” Yuma said, very softly.

Shuu stared at him. He didn’t understand why Yuma was apologising. He didn’t want Yuma to be upset. He shook his head. Smiled.

“No harm done,” he said.

Yuma smiled. It was a warm, honest look that took years off of his face, which was lined with sun wrinkles. Shuu knew back then that Yuma appreciated that Shuu allowed them to be more than their stations when they weren’t being watched. It was part of why Yuma liked him. He hadn’t known, as he would come to find out after the war, that it was part of what Yuma respected about him.

A man who can’t laugh at himself has no business laughing at anyone else.

It’s interactions like that which got Shuu through the war. He was good at strategy and even better at thinking on the spot and under pressure, but those qualities didn’t keep him alive. It was Kanae, Yuma, and Mairo and the rest of his men, who grinned and grumbled and gritted their teeth. Sometimes because of him, which was to be expected. Sometimes with him, which always made Shuu privately rejoice because he wasn’t at liberty to show his reactions. They knew and appreciated that Shuu would write a good letter if they died. They knew no one would write anything half as good for him.

But there was no pity. It was War, and the pity of War. They were just part of the cogs in the machine. Kanae came back, and he was different in the way people can be. Angrier in a strange, tightly coiled way, but also desperately determined to be back and stay. It wasn’t like how some people came back, Mars in their eyes and Vulcan in their mouths. It was more like the anger shielded Kanae. It was his version of the blunt numbness that Shuu buried himself inside of, only coming out to care about those under his command.

He dreamed about Kaneki most nights, the memory of their stolen hours together in the garden and the flat looping on repeat. In his waking hours, he opted to forget it. He opted to forget a lot of things. He forgot his pain. Forgot his tears. Forgot everything except what had to be done and how to do it. He wasn’t unhappy. He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t anything except his rank and station and all that it commanded to win the war and keep those under his command safe.

“You needn’t care so much,” Big Madam sneered.

It was one of the handful of times he and Shuu had been alone together in the underground command room. Shuu had been covered in dirt and mud he couldn’t get out of his uniform. His hands were soaked in blood that he couldn’t scrub off. There was the memory of intestines and gore under his boots. Big Madam sucked on his pipe. Shuu began, as he perfected in the hours, days, months spent pretending to understand Big Madam’s commentary, to mentally wander away.

“I don’t,” Shuu said, and it was true, although he hadn’t understood why.

He’d grown, he understands now, to love. It wasn’t the same as caring. It wasn’t the same as loving people back. Shuu had never been good with other people’s emotions and, in so many ways, even more abysmal with his own. During the war, he thought of it in simpler terms. He didn’t want anyone to die. He didn’t want their deaths on his hands. Especially towards the end, he didn’t mind the idea of his own death, but he did mind the idea that, without him, the casualty statistics went up. He didn’t want that, and so he stayed alive. He held onto his command and to those under him. He loved them. Fiercely. Selfishly. With all his heart and soul and every earthly feeling.

It’s only now he understands they grew to love him back.

 

The Kensington residence was majorly damaged during the zeppelin bombings. It means, although the repairs have been made to the structure and to the main rooms, much of it is still cleared of furniture and the attic is still in disrepair aside to make sure that the roof is waterproofed. Shuu rubs his knees, which are sore from the long journey from Glasgow, as Matsumae shows him the details of what still needs to be done. 

“Why wasn’t I informed of this sooner?” Shuu asks as he reads over the scribbled list of existing property damage. “If I’d known the residence was in this condition, I would have told Father to sell this instead of the Mayfair residence.”

Matsumae pauses, a surprised and slightly unsure look flashing over her face before she quickly masks it. It signals that Shuu’s tone is harsher than it should be. He grimaces, sitting back in the armchair.

“My apologies,” he mutters, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I am… in more pain than I thought I was.”

A soft intake of breath. “Do you need a doctor?”

“No,” Shuu grits out; he only just manages to stop himself from snapping. “I’m going to go for a walk.”

Walking helps. Even that, though, involves swallowing his pride. Shuu turns the new walking cane over in his hands before gritting his teeth and reaching for his hat. Mirumo had gifted it to him the day he left. Apparently, the doctor had measured him for it back in February without Shuu realising. That had been the real purpose of the visit rather than to chase Shuu out of his hermitage in his room. It is a fine and fashionable piece, and it does help, but Shuu finds himself annoyed even so. 

There are a lot of uneven patches of ground even in the quiet residential area, particularly where there are cobblestones unsettled from the bombings. Shuu navigates through them, glad for the distraction but sad for the damage. He doesn’t see anyone about that he recognises, which is even sadder. He doubts anyone who lived here when he was young and used to visit with Mirumo would recognise him now anyways. The walk ends up leaving his joints feeling better, but his mood is dreary when he returns just after dinnertime.

Kanae greets him with a dinner tray as Shuu lights himself a lamp in the study that he is also using as his bedroom. It’s hard to focus on the light, Kanae, and the tray all at the same time, so Shuu prioritises the light. It’s awkward.

“I’ll,” Kanae says very quietly as Shuu stares into the light, “leave the tray on the writing desk.”

Maybe Shuu says something. Maybe he doesn’t. Does it matter? Kanae leaves him alone again because he is unfit for any sort of company. Maybe he’s simply unfit.

The war ruined everything. 

The thought makes him angry. It’s not true. Shuu cannot blame the war for everything that has happened. He cannot blame himself either. He cannot blame anything or anyone for what has happened.

He’ll never do anything if he lives like that.

Shuu stands over the dinner tray, which features the bland diet of bread with stewed meat and vegetables that he’s been on since February. He knows he must eat, especially since he’s been traveling, but he has no appetite and cannot stomach more than a few bits of bread. London is dreary, but it is warmer than Bute, and Kaneki’s letter did have a point about change in weather affecting one’s health. 

Matsumae comes in to find him sitting at the foot of the bed. He’s still dressed in his day clothes. The dinner tray is untouched. She hovers for moment in the doorway. Shuu barely manages to look at her. As it is, he meets her gaze through the side of his left eye. Through his hair. He watches her breathe in. Out.

“Kanae has gone to call on Mister Mairo,” she says, stepping forward to take the dinner tray.

They had discussed this on the train down. Mairo and his father live in Battersea, which is in easy walking distance, but it isn’t the safest place the last Shuu checked.

“At this time of night?”

Matsumae purses her lips. Shuu frowns, looking out the window. It’s not quite dark yet as the days have grown long. Kanae—

In the war, Kanae shot a Prussian soldier who was trying to load a machine gun. Five pistol shots. Two in the face, one in neck, two in the chest. Shuu had seen it. Out of the corner of his eye. The machine gun had been facing them. If Kanae hadn’t shot, they would have both died. Made into sponges of their own flesh.

He closes his eyes. Pinches the bridge of his nose.

“There are more dangerous things,” he mutters.

Matsumae says nothing. When Shuu opens his eyes, she’s in the process of setting out his night clothes. She doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t appear angry. Just tense in the set of her jaw and tired in the slight sag in her shoulders. She doesn’t approve, but there is nothing to say. He watches her breath in. Out. Soothe wrinkles out of the cotton.

“Would you,” and her voice is very soft and even more resigned, “like a wash basin?”

He is unfair to her. He is unfair to everyone.

“Yes,” he says, pushing himself to his feet to douse the lamp. “It need not be hot.”

He washes up after Matsumae brings the basin, soap, and cloth in the growing dark. He dresses for bed listening to the creaking of the upper floors and to Kanae’s arrival home just before nightfall. Matsumae and Kanae murmur inaudibly in the hallway, much as they did when Shuu spent the worst of the winter months shut up in his room. For a long moment, he stands in the dark with his night shirt in his hands. They’re arguing about Kanae being out at this time of night. Shuu shrugs his arms through the shirtsleeves just as Kanae’s voice begins to rise.

“Did Master Shuu say anything about it?”

Matsumae makes a shushing sound that draws a scoff from Kanae. Shuu stands with the shirt halfway on, listening to them shift on the creaking floor.

“Then,” Kanae says, just loud enough for Shuu to pick up his annoyed tone, “it isn’t any trouble. Besides, Mairo and his father—”

Their voices move away as they drop back down to true whispers. Shuu breathes out through his nose, pulling his shirt on fully. He doesn’t feel like struggling with the trousers. It’s far too warm for it, and he doesn’t want to wake in the night sweating and confused. He’s likely to wake confused anyhow, and if his legs are damp, he’s liable to forget himself. He doesn’t fancy waking their neighbours with his screaming.

As it turns out, it’s Shuu who is woken in the dead of night by screaming. It’s instinct that jolts him to his feet and out of bed. He’s in the main hall before he remembers where he is and his knees screech at him for the sudden movement. He’s not the only one awake. There’s a crashing noise followed by Matsumae shrieking in surprise as she appears from the hall adjacent to the stairwell. She’s in her nightdress and barefoot, illuminated by the light coming in from the front of the hall. 

“What—”

“Jesus Christ!” Kanae roars, appearing at the top of the stairwell; the familiarity of that howling curse causes Shuu to begin to relax despite himself. “Is that outside?”

Shuu turns towards the windows. He’s the only one decently dressed enough to go to them despite his lack of trousers. He pushes aside the thin curtains, peering out through the glass. The street is empty, although the house directly across from them also has someone in the window. For a moment, their eyes meet. It’s Georgie Devenish in her dressing robe. Shuu used to have tea with her and her husband with Mirumo. She makes to open the window, so Shuu does as well. The screaming hasn’t stopped and has been joined by shouting from what looks like the Shepard’s house two doors down from Shuu’s side of the street.

“Has your phone been repaired?” Devenish shouts.

“No,” Shuu calls back.

“Could you please come over and use ours?” she shouts. “Harry is out and I can’t figure the devil out of it.”

This is how Shuu ends up over at the Devenish’s at just past three in the morning. He’s dressed hastily in the rest of in his nightclothes with his traveling coat and boots thrown on. Devenish’s butler makes him tea after the police arrive. He doesn’t have the heart to turn it down.

“I saw that you and your household had arrived in the early afternoon,” Devenish says when the screaming and shouting finally dies down and they’re able to take bracing sips of the tea. “I wasn’t sure if you were accepting visitors,” and her eyes flicker unconsciously towards Shuu’s cane before she catches herself and hastily looks back at his face, “else I would have called over.”

“Please do not worry,” Shuu murmurs. “You are free to call over anytime before we leave for Paris. The house is not yet in full working condition—hence the phone—, so I must beg that you excuse it.”

“Of course,” she says, smiling in a strained, sad way that people all have these days. “The poor McDowells.”

Shuu sips his tea. “Yes,” he says.

The McDowells had lived in the house next to the Tsukiyama property. The bomb had fallen directly through their roof and blown out everything except the front of the building. It had killed everyone in the household except for Paul McDowell, Shuu’s age mate, who had been in North Africa. From what Shuu has heard, Paul has gone back to Antrim and has announced no intention of rebuilding the house. It sits as a derelict plot in the middle of the street. 

Before the war, they would have been having a conversation about how such a thing was a blight upon the neighbourhood’s reputation. Now, Shuu and Georgie Devenish sip tea awkwardly at three in the morning while the police sort out the commotion at the Shepard’s house. Shuu remembers now that the Shepards lost their daughter early in the war. She’d joined the Red Cross and went missing in Belgium while Shuu completed his thesis at Oxford. It had made him feel ill. 

“Thank you,” he mumbles, standing up and reaching for his cane, “for the tea.”

 

Nothing much happens for the next two days.

Shuu spends most of the day taking visitors from the neighbourhood, who all have heard from Devenish that the Tsukiyama house is accepting visitors. Almost all the visitors are surprised that they’re staying in the house at all.

“What with the McDowells likely moving away entirely,” elderly Eunice de Groot from a street over says directly after complimenting the biscuits Matsumae made, “even you Japanese Scots leaving would be a bad note.”

“Granmama!” her granddaughter, Janet, says, eyes huge and scandalised.

“Well, it’s the truth!” de Groot continues loudly as Shuu stomps on Kanae’s foot beneath the table. “The whole war was disaster. What were those barbarian Prussians playing at—”

“I’m so sorry,” Janet mumbles when their carriage comes back half an hour later and her grandmother has been loaded onto it. “Granmama doesn’t get out very much with the gout, and she’s not, not, not the same these days… We think her mind may be going. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Excuse me, thank you for the tea and biscuits, it was, ah, lovely—”

“A shame,” Matsumae says as Kanae jams his hat onto his head a few minutes later to go for a walk to burn off steam. “Janet is such a nice girl.”

“Nice girl,” Kanae snarls before stomping off down the steps.

Shuu picks up his cane to go on his own walk, eyeing Kanae’s just short of jogging progress down the road. He’s heading towards Battersea to call on Mairo to invite him, his father, and Helen Doaks, Mario’s lady, to dinner on Sunday. Shuu turns in the opposite direction, past the derelict McDowells’ house. As usual, he has no destination in mind; his walks, because he’s limited by his legs, are simply to get exercise. He listens to the rhythmic tap of his cane on the cobblestones, and ends up stopping to exchange with a few neighbours on the way back. Harry Devenish is back, so Shuu ends up sitting in their main reception room again after their butler catches him as he gets home.

“Thank you for helping Georgie on Thursday,” Harry says as more tea is brought. “I hate leaving her alone so often, but business is so terribly unstable.”

“It wasn’t any trouble,” Shuu says, forcing himself not to mumble nor to stare at Harry, who looks like he’s aged twenty years since Shuu saw him last three years ago. “When did you have your phone installed?”

“Only about two months ago,” Harry says as he dumps sugar into his tea. “We’d been at the top of the waiting list for a while, so—”

He waves his spoon vaguely. There isn’t any need to expound. It’s fairly pleasant as tea goes because Harry does most of the talking, going on about the railways and steel. Harry had served in non-combatant organising the railway engineers during the war, and Georgie does charity work with refugees these days. Shuu decides, as he bids the Devenishs good evening, that they’re alright for people Mirumo’s age. He hadn’t had much of an opinion on them before except that Harry was a bit boring. 

Shuu understands very well now that he wasn’t the best judge of people before the war.

Kanae returns home just after Shuu. He’s in a spectacularly good mood, which means that Mairo is coming to dinner the next evening. 

“His father will not be able to come, but Miss Doaks will,” he says as Matsumae ushers them both into the conservatory where they’ve taken to having meals when they’re all home. “You’ll like her, Master Shuu. She’s a very well-read.”

“Ah,” Shuu says, reaching out to help Matsumae arrange their tableware. “Is that why Mairo has suddenly become interested in the classics?”

Kanae laughs merrily. “Oh, certainly. He’s very transparent, that old sergeant.”

It’s a good thing that Kanae is peering inside of the pie dish because Shuu fumbles the spoon he was setting. He doesn’t seem to notice his slip of tongue. Mairo doesn’t include his rank in his letters nor on the artist’s mark of the designs he’s produced for Liberty. Shuu suspects that Mairo doesn’t particularly want to be known for his military career these days. He’s wondered privately if Doaks has something to do with that.

The war is, of course, an unavoidable fact of everyone’s lives. Even Eunice de Groot in her growing senility can’t deny it. It’s how people chose to live with it that makes the experience so difficult. There are infinite differences.

Shuu thinks about this as he sits at his writing desk after dinner, drumming his fingers over Kaneki’s letter. The tone of the letter annoys him. They’d already ruined their last night together arguing about these very points. Shuu had wanted to have proper sex or at least get to suck Kaneki off before they parted ways, but Kaneki had been adamant that they not leave elephants between them. The strident, hard tone Kaneki had used comes through with each word written on the cheap stationary.

Despite his continued annoyance with the tone, Kaneki’s points are sound, and his worries are overall justified. Shuu can concede this alone and unaroused and not so desperate to taste Kaneki’s flesh. He doesn’t, however, want to write a letter in which he capitulates and begs forgiveness. He’d been right, too. He isn’t able to travel any more than is physically feasible, not to mention legal with all the uncertainty about borders. This is not the war where the entire point was to capture and cover land and resources. He’s going to Paris to write a few articles for Yuma. Maybe start a book. He’s also supposed to make connections. 

Of course, nothing is so simple as that, but it’s not like Shuu can write Kaneki everything in a letter that could be read by the censor.

He gets as far as _Dear Mister Kaneki_ before he gives up and goes to bed.

 

Sunday is very quiet. Almost everyone on the street makes a show of walking or taking carriages to church. For politeness’ sake if not the family’s reputation, Shuu should make an appearance as well, but he doesn’t wake up early enough, having not slept until the sun began to rise again just past three in the morning. Matsumae goes so that the Tsukiyama family is not wholly unrepresented, so Kanae wakes Shuu up with a pot of harshly ground and strong coffee that tastes just a step above what they both learned to brew in the war.

“Do you happen to know,” Shuu mumbles as he submerges a quarter of his biscuit into the coffee, “if Father goes when he’s in town?” 

“He must,” Kanae grunts.

Shuu sighs. The past few days have inadvertently caused him to have more social interaction than he has had since returning to Bute. The rumour that the Marquess of Anstruther is apparently making appearance in the social season has already begun to spread. It is untrue; Shuu has no intention of taking part of the social dances. Even so, several carte de visite have already been delivered from people Shuu used to attend salon with during university. Shuu has no desire to see them; he resolutely refuses to become reacquainted with Daniel Parrot, who managed to come up with some sort of excuse in front of the Board to stay out of service. A part of Shuu selfishly desires to hurry up their itinerary to Paris to avoid all of this, but that is far more trouble than its worth.

“I am going to be upstairs for the day,” he says after they’ve finished the coffee pot. “Would you arrange a carriage for Mairo and Miss Doaks?”

“Certainly,” Kanae says, lips quirking a little. 

Shuu devotes the rest of the day to working on the Virgil translation for Yoshimura, who will be meeting them in Paris for business purposes. Matsumae comes up still in her church dress and shoes to pass him a handful of additional carte de visite. She smiles slightly at what must be a deeply put upon expression.

“I suppose I must write each,” he grumbles as he flips through them to find this is a mixture of the family’s business associates. “Tell them that we are due to leave soon, but we would be happy to host them when next the Tsukiyama is in town.”

“You were very missed,” Matsumae agrees.

“My father is missed,” Shuu sighs, moving the translation aside and shuffling the contents of the desk to move appropriate stationary onto the mat. “They don’t know me.”

She stares at him. It is, he realises as he switches pens, an unusually astute observation for himself. He sighs again, reaching up to push his hair out of his eyes. He shuts his eyes. Rubs his knuckles over them.

A light, tentative touch of fingertips brushes against the bone of his left shoulder.

Shuu freezes. For a moment, he doesn’t comprehend what is happening. By the time he starts to come out of the shock, Matsumae is already drawing her hand away. When Shuu manages to look up, she has her hands clasped in front of herself. The lace of her Sunday gloves pulls around her knuckles. She doesn’t look at him. Her eyes are wide and on the floor.

Matsumae has always prided herself on being a model servant. It was, Shuu has always understood, her power. Her shield and weapon in a world that eyes her birth and face with suspicion. He has known since she joined the household that this was something he needed to respect. So, despite their trust and love, they have always kept their distance.

Servants do not touch their masters. Not to offer comfort. Not to reprimand. Not as if they are anything approaching equals. 

There is no mistaking what just happened, and, from how tightly wound in horror Matsumae is, she knows it. 

“Excuse me.”

She turns. Disappears on quick steps from the library. Down the creaking stairs. She didn’t wait to be dismissed. Shuu stares after her. At the empty doorway. The ghost of her touch, fleeting and instinctive, lingers.

He remembers how she looked when she first saw his legs in hospital. The horror in her eyes. The way her hand trembled as she covered her mouth to catch the gasp that escaped. He had felt such despair then to see her so terrified, and he had hated the war and its stupidity so very much.

He hadn’t thought at all about how Matsumae had felt. He hadn’t thought at all about what she might have thought. How she might have changed. The war touched everything. Shuu and later Kanae brought it home to her.

He looks down at the stationary. His pen. The carte de visite. He thinks of Kaneki’s letter down in his room. Of the bombed out house next door. 

He is at a complete loss of what to do.


	10. May 1919, Part 2

**Excerpt from oral interview series collected by Hinami Fueguchi from 1965-1977**  
_Shuu Tsukiyama (Subject ID: 032881); Interview 3 of 8, 19 March 1970_

**HF:** Was this before or after you were gassed?

 **ST:** Before.

 **HF:** So Kanae wasn’t there.

 **ST:** No. [ _long pause_ ] No. My batman was still Yuma. He wasn’t there. I’d gone ahead. With the map. I used to do that a lot.

 **HF:** You were young.

 **ST:** I was. I… [ _long pause_ ] The soldier had green eyes. Light brown hair. He… He was probably younger than me. Still had spots on his face. No rank insignia. I stepped in him. 

**HF:** In him?

 **ST:** Yes. My guess is that a tank ran over him, and it carried off most of his lower half. So, when I came across him, I stepped in the mess. I don’t know how he was still alive. It shouldn’t have been possible, but, but it was, and I looked at him, and he looked at me, and he, he, he asked me to help him. He said—and I still _hear_ him, I can see him _looking_ at me—he said, “Aidez-moi,” and he had his gun; it was just out of his reach. Isn’t that horrible? How long had he been lying there, just, just _half_ , half of, of, of—I couldn’t leave him. You understand? I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

 **HF:** What happened?

 **ST:** I killed him.

 **HF:** You—

 **ST:** He asked me to help him. I took his gun and shot him in the head and, and, and he—he asked me to _help_ him. So I killed him.

 **HF:** Do you regret that?

 **ST:** No. No. That… That was my finest moment in the whole damn war.

 

When Shuu was seven, there was a scandal.

He’d talked back to his maths tutor. He doesn’t remember why. Shuu had been a lively but fairly obedient child at that age, easy to distract and reign in from his flights of fancy. The fact he’d talked back had been unusual on its own, let alone what followed.

The tutor took the belt to him. In all honestly, the shock of the belting had been worse than the pain initially, but, by the third strike to his legs, it had hurt badly. Shuu doesn’t remember exactly what happened, but he’d been without his shoes for some reason. By the time someone else came, drawn by Shuu’s screaming, there was absolutely no way the incident wouldn’t become a scandal. 

The tutor had been removed. The exact incident had been hushed up, but Mirumo had ruined the man in court after using political and government connections to put together a fraud case. It was an uncharacteristic move. Mirumo had always been conservative in his machinations, and such an obvious use of power was not typical of the Tsukiyama family. Shuu hadn’t fully understood his father’s anger at the time. Rather, he’d found this new side to Mirumo frightening. He was keen after that not to disobey, and he paid better attention in all of his lessons, which were always attended by a trusted servant in the household from then on. 

Looking back on it now, Shuu thinks he understands a bit better. Until he was gassed, he’d had scars over his lower thighs where the tawse had connected below his shorts and broken skin. It hadn’t bothered him as the scars were mostly faded, and many other boys at Eton had similar scars from caning. It wasn’t sightly, but Shuu had never had to explain it. He knew his scars were not his fault. 

Now, the scars are not visible at all. They’ve been overtaken by those left by the gas. The gas scars are incredibly ugly and absolutely unsightly, and they are not his fault. Even so, he hates the scars. He now understands this is why Mirumo hated the scars from that maths tutor. It’s not about the scars being anyone’s fault. It’s the fact that the scars exist at all. Shuu should never have been belted. He should never have been gassed. None of the damage was necessary. It is, simply, proof of human cruelty.

Shuu doesn’t understand it. In a way, he hopes he never will. Big Madam understood it, and the commands Shuu received through him and other superiors reflected it. Shuu’s platoon should never have been sent out to the front line as often as it had. There should have been weeks more downtime. There was always a great shortage of necessary supplies. Shuu, let alone the rest of his men, should never have seen as much action as they did. It was not oversight. It was deliberate.

“You’ve got a conscience,” Big Madam sneered once when he caught Shuu alone.

It was late evening in the officer’s mess. There was only the dim light of the lamp Shuu had lit to write reports by. Big Madam leaned over his shoulder. He wasn’t looking at the papers. 

“It would be easier,” he whispered, close enough that Shuu could smell his tobacco and dinner on his breath, “if you didn’t.”

Shuu jerked. For a moment, their bodies collided. Big Madam’s face twisted into a wide, toothy grin, and his large hands gripped Shuu’s waist. Shuu froze, which made that grin twist further. Become something else altogether.

“How are you liking Mairo?” he whispered.

Shuu saw red. It took all of his self-control to not swing around and punch Big Madam as hard as he could. As it was, he couldn’t stop himself from standing up so quickly, he knocked over the chair and writing desk. Paper and ink splattered. Big Madam let go, laughing uproariously, as Shuu seethed. He couldn’t say anything. He had already given too much away.

It’s terrible, but those experiences with Big Madam taught Shuu more about the cruelties of the world than the violence of the war. The types of petty cruelties that Big Madam delighted were a level of insidiousness that crossed into the obscene. He wasn’t the only one who was like that, but he was the main person who had direct power over Shuu and his men. It wasn’t like when Shuu was seven and belted and Mirumo came to take revenge for him. It wasn’t like all the other small hurts and slights when the Tsukiyama name could be a shield. It was the first time that Shuu had to stand on his own two feet. It was the first time that Shuu had to make choices and live with the doubt of a conscientious command.

Big Madam was right: it would be easier if he didn’t have a conscience.

But Shuu did, and, although he didn’t understand it then, it began to make him strong.

 

There is a light drizzle outside when the carriage bearing Mairo and Helen Doaks arrives for dinner.

Shuu watches it come around the corner and up the street through the library window. Kanae goes out to greet them, which means that Matsumae must be finishing up in the kitchen. He had brought up Shuu’s dinner clothes and a wash basin a half an hour ago, dressed himself in a kitchen apron over his dinner vest. He carried the scent of boiled potatoes with him.

“I’m helping Matsumae prepare dinner,” he explained because Shuu must have looked a bit puzzled.

“Ah,” Shuu said, desperately hoping that Kanae was not allowed to do anything except prepare the potatoes.

“I’m in charge of tea,” Kanae continued blithely as he set up the wash basin in the space Shuu cleared on the desk.

“Ah,” Shuu said again, relieved to prefer coffee.

Mairo emerges from the coach first. For a fleeting moment, Shuu assumes that he’s wearing his uniform. He blinks and the illusion dissolves. Of course Mairo isn’t wearing his uniform. He’s dressed in a slightly stiff dinner suit, his summer coat open because he’s always run hot. It all must be new based on the slightly awkward way he stands in his brightly shined shoes. It makes Shuu feel bad. He hopes that Mairo hasn’t bought a whole new dinner ensemble just for this. 

A woman emerges behind him. She’s wearing, Shuu can tell, what is clearly her Sunday best. The hat she wears is modest, and her fair hair is done up. She’s put colour on her lips, which highlights them when she looks up at the house with wide eyes. Shuu draws back hurriedly out of view of the window. He doesn’t want to startle her or anyone else. There’s nothing worse than being observed without knowing it. 

Mairo used to have nightmares, he’d confessed once when they couldn’t sleep because of distant shelling, about eyes emerging from the mud.

Shuu stops. Presses his fingers to his lips. He breathes in through his nose. Out. He drops his hand back to his side. Moves to the library door. He leaves his cane against the writing desk.

“Oh!” Mairo exclaims, hands on his hips as Shuu comes to greet him and Helen Doaks, in the foyer of the Kensington House, “you look handsome!”

Shuu laughs before he can stop himself. He allows himself to use the bannister as he descends the stairs, which creak worryingly on the third step from the landing. 

“Are you truly Mairo?” he jests back, settling his hands in his vest’s pockets in mock haughtiness. “A compliment for a superior officer?”

“You’re just the Marquess now,” Mairo says easily, smile toothy under a scraggily moustache that somehow suits him. “I can mock you all I want so long as I don’t write it down.”

“Slander,” Kanae says, striding over to take the tea tray from Matsumae, who has emerged from the kitchen. “Apologies, Miss Doaks. I would shake your hand, but—”

“It’s no trouble, Mister Rosewald,” Doaks says, and she has such a pretty smile; Shuu can see why Mairo is so in love with her. “My lord, thank you very much for having me.”

“None of that,” Shuu mumbles before he catches himself and clears his throat. “Tea is ready, I believe.”

Matsumae takes Mairo and Doaks’ coats. Kanae has already disappeared from the sitting room. A pot of coffee has also been provided on the card table, which Shuu makes no pretence of his eagerness to help himself to. Mairo and Doaks take tea as does Kanae, although Mairo upon noticing the colour of the tea catches Shuu’s eye and hastily accepts the offer of sugar.

“What a treat,” he says, obviously attempting to signal Doaks to do the same even as she declines the sugar pot. 

“This is so lovely,” Doaks says as they all take seats around the card table, which is set for mahjong. “This is such a beautiful tea set. Bishop and Stonier?”

“Yes,” Shuu says, smiling in what he hopes is a warm way and not slightly pained as she takes a sedate sip of the tea. “My grandfather enjoyed their designs.” 

It’s also the only full tea set stored in the house that survived the bombing, which means that Shuu can actually answer this question with confidence. He himself has really no opinion about tableware, and it isn’t as if he can be seen checking the maker’s mark in company. To Shuu, a tea set is a tea set. So long as it doesn’t taste of what it’s made of, he’s happy.

It is testament to Doaks’ character and bearing that she does not react at all to what must be the most over-brewed cup of tea she’s ever had. She settles the cup back on the saucer, smiling warmly. Shuu hastily sips his coffee as Mairo launches into a conversation at Kanae’s prompting about his and his father’s day at work. Shuu suddenly feels faintly but not unpleasantly intimidated.

No wonder Mairo is enamoured with her.

Tea and then dinner is a very pleasant affair. The main dining room is in the part of the house that remains damaged, so they have it in the conservatory with the doors open to let in fresh air from the garden. The garden itself is bare as it had to be cleared of rubble for the conservatory to be rebuilt, but the breeze is mild and the air pleasant. Doaks and Kanae chatter about what to plant. Roses, of course, and perhaps some ivy to start. Shuu listens with half an ear while Mairo tucks into the wine.

“I’ve heard,” he says when the conversation lulls and Matsumae has brought in the potatoes and roast chicken, “that you enjoy the classics, Miss Doaks.”

“Oh, no,” Mairo murmurs, catching Kanae’s eye and grimacing. 

“I do,” Doaks says, but she’s suddenly shy again as she had briefly seemed upon arrival. “I’m certainly no scholar like yourself, but I do enjoyment the Greeks.”

Shuu cuts a small sliver of meat off his chicken leg. “Enjoyment is the most important,” he says, moving to cut a potato into an equally small piece. “Do you have a favourite story? I’m sure Mairo has mentioned I’m fond of the Epic Cycle.” 

She starts to laugh before she can stop herself. “He did mention his commander was fond of the ‘story with Helen’.”

“I’m right here,” Mairo mumbles as Shuu is forced to put down his utensils to stifle his laughter.

He hasn’t, he realises, laughed this much in months. Not since November when he was in Paris celebrating the end of the war. He was the only person who wasn’t drinking because he knew if he started he would start crying again and scare his men. He watched them instead, holding onto Kanae’s bad hand, and he laughed so much that his ribs ached as Yuma attempted to pick up every single person who walked past with blundering French made more incomprehensible by his Glaswegian accent.

It is just as they are finished with dinner and about to convert the conservatory for drinks and the gramophone that Mairo catches Shuu’s eye. It is a look that Shuu would be able to recognise in near pitch darkness. He stops, which makes the rest of the room stop.

“You wish to speak.”

Mairo inclines his head, demure and entirely serious. It is obvious from the way that Doaks straightens as well that she knows something of what is behind this unusual show of deference. 

“Yes, milord.”

Shuu breathes in. Behind Mairo, Kanae and Matsumae hover. Kanae’s expression is pinched and uncertain. Matsumae’s is her peculiar sort of blank that she has mastered to hide everything from the world. Shuu breathes out.

“Alright. We’ll talk in the sitting room.”

The tea and coffee has been cleared from the sitting room, and the card table is set for mahjong. It surprises Shuu and makes him pause briefly before sitting down. Matsumae must have set it out, perhaps predicting that they might want more entertainment than conversation and music. He reaches out, picking up a green dragon tile from the box. He loves the game. His father taught him to play, and, since Shuu was sixteen, it’s the one activity alongside his father that he’s always been allowed to participate in when they have company. Mairo studies the tiles curiously as he sits in the chair adjacent to Shuu.

“I didn’t know you played.”

Shuu nods. He sits back, setting the tile down on the table face up. Mairo sits back as well, breathing out a long sigh. He frowns, staring at the tile. For a long moment, they are silent. It is not unfamiliar. They spent a lot of time like this in the war. 

Eventually, Mairo stirs himself. He sits up straight again. Fists his hands over his thighs. He takes a deep breath. 

“I’ve been approached,” he says, just low enough that Kanae, Matsumae, and Doaks’ voices are loud back in the conservatory, “by Section 5.”

Shuu sits up straight. It’s a bit too fast to be calm. Mairo blinks, but he doesn’t flinch back. Shuu forces himself to blink. It doesn’t make his heart any calmer.

“You shouldn’t be telling me this.”

Mairo breathes. Out. He doesn’t blink.

“It’s not about you,” he says, and it’s not disobedience; they are not commander and subordinate. “It’s about Yuma.”

“Yuma,” Shuu says, rather blankly.

Mairo nods. He reaches up. Scratches his moustache. He squints slightly. It’s his most obvious tell. It was how everyone knew that he had a losing hand at cards.

“I don’t know exactly, but he’s probably written something that got him reported. Maybe it’s his Fabian stuff. He _is_ kind of a communist. Not a Bolshevik, but…”

Shuu knows this. It was impossible to miss, really, especially with the sort of things Yuma used to spout off when he was over-tired and grouchy. The socialism was less worrisome than the pacifism, so Shuu hadn’t bothered to hush Yuma unless someone higher up was around. He should have, but Shuu privately agreed with the majority of what Yuma spouted. He couldn’t say so, and Yuma knew that. It became a large part of why they ended up getting along. 

He turns the mahjong piece between his fingers. Mairo watches him, his fingers still tugging at his moustache. There’s the sound of someone moving a heavy object back in the conservatory. Shuu can only guess it’s the gramophone. 

“You really shouldn’t be telling me this.”

Mairo drops his hand. His gaze doesn’t leave Shuu. It travels from his hand, over his chest, up his neck, to his face. For a long moment, they stare at each other. It’s not a challenge. It’s not friendly. Shuu has no idea what this is. He knows his confusion must show on his face. He’s never been good at hiding his emotions.

For some reason, it makes Mairo’s shoulders relax. He smiles a little. It only just touches his eyes.

“You’re the only person in our government I have any loyalty to.”

Shuu’s fingers close of the tile. Mairo’s smile stretches. He grits his teeth. Draws his shoulders up again. He looks like he’s gearing to go over the top.

“You’ll sit in the House of Lords soon enough,” he says because he’s always been audacious; it’s gotten him into so much trouble and saved his life. “I know your family probably has its own moles, but you need your own. I’m not dumb, you know. I’m aware how powerful the Tsukiyama family is, especially in relation to us British Japanese. You get us jobs. You _hire_ us.”

“My father—”

“And you, too,” Mairo says, plunging forward, just like he did in the mud; he never hesitated under Shuu’s command. “If it wasn’t for you, I would have _nothing_. Tad’s old. We’d never have gotten the job at Liberty. I would never have met Helen. I would… Helen wants children, and Tad deserves grandkids, and I…”

He swallows, hands clenching on his thighs. He hasn’t raised his voice beyond the urgent whisper, but he doesn’t need to even with the gramophone and voices in the sitting room. He swallows again. Blinks rapidly.

“Some nights,” he whispers, so low the gramophone almost drowns him out, “I wake up because I can still hear you screaming as the gas ate through your trousers.”

The world splits in two.

For a moment, Shuu ceases to exist. 

But then, in the reception room, Matsumae laughs. Kanae and Doaks join her. The sound of the gramophone trickles back in. Shuu realises that he’s staring at Mairo, who is looking at him again. There’s a faint pain in his hands from where his nails have bitten through the skin of his palms. Mairo isn’t blinking. Tears, slow and steady, track down his cheeks. Into his moustache. Over it to his jaw and beard.

“Or other nights I’m holding Kanae’s fingers in my hands, and you know what’s the most ridiculous part?” and he smiles, the most pained expression imaginable. “All I could think was if Mum was still alive, she could sew them back on. It’s such a simple thought. When I wake up, I know it’s not right. But I’m a simple man, and that’s how I think.

“You, though. You’re smart. You’re the smartest person I know. And I know you’re brave because I said those things just now and you haven’t run away screaming. So I know you understand: nothing is going to change unless someone _makes it change_.”

Shuu’s heart is in his ears. A loud, rapid pulse. 

“You think I am that person.”

Mairo swallows. His eyes are shining, but he doesn’t blink. 

“Yes.”

He is desperate.

“Yuma has always said you are strong. Your heart is strong. I believe in that. More than anything or anyone, it’s you I would give my service to.”

He is burning.

“You serve the king. I am not—”

He opens his mouth.

“I give my service to you.”

And he is a horseman, the rider waiting for command. This has become, for this moment, that kind of story. Shuu loved these stories. Still does. But this is not a world of heroes and heroics, no matter what lives in their hearts.

That is why Shuu’s heart is strong enough for this. He breathes in. Out. He does not shut his eyes.

“I understand.”

Mairo bows his head. Above them, the house creaks. The gramophone sputters on the end of a record as Matsumae and Doaks laugh. Mairo breathes in. Out. 

Shuu stands up. Offers Mairo his hand. Mairo stares at it before he takes it. He’s shaking, and Shuu bears his weight as he finds his feet. They stand together for a long moment, hands clasped, before the shaking subsides and Shuu lets go. The record changes. Chopin.

“Mairo.”

They look at each other. Shuu steps forward. They’re close enough that they stand flush at the shoulders. Mairo smells of metal, paint, and tobacco. 

“Thank you.”

 

Shuu does not return to the sitting room. He does not join everyone in the conservatory. 

Mairo goes, but Shuu retreats upstairs to the library. He doesn’t explain himself. He doesn’t have to, but it is terribly rude even though Mairo likely came up with some sort of excuse for him. Kanae and Matsumae will accept it, but Shuu can’t help but wonder what Doaks will think. He doubts that he’s made a good impression.

He doesn’t need to make a good impression. That was never the point. This was never purely a social visit. Mairo made that completely clear.

It’s well past midnight when Kanae comes to Shuu up in the library. He stands in the doorway, which is slightly lopsided and has not yet been repaired. The light from the lamp Shuu has lit and set at the end of the writing desk throws shadows over Kanae’s body but lights his face. He stares for a long moment before stepping forward. He crosses into check the lamp. His hair is undone, but he still wears his dinner suit without the jacket. 

They don’t talk as Kanae passes around Shuu to take a seat in the slightly musty armchair by the window. It’s misty outside from the weak light of the streetlamps. Kanae folds his hands over his stomach, legs spread wide and feet resting on their heels. He looks out the window without seeing it. 

“She’s nice,” Kanae says, startling Shuu slightly because he’d begun to think this would simply be one of their quiet times together; “Miss Doaks.”

Shuu shifts. Grimaces. His knees have gone stiff. He pushes himself up on the arms of the chair, looking down at his feet to make sure of his balance.

“She is.”

Silence. Shuu looks up. Kanae hasn’t looked away from the window. It’s unsettling. He can’t be watching their reflections. There isn’t enough light. 

“Kanae?”

A long moment passes before Kanae shifts. He looks down at his hands. His right little and ring fingers rub over the empty knobs of knuckle on the left. The muscles of his jaw work, clenching and unclenching his teeth.

“I’m jealous.” 

Shuu’s knees lock up. For a brief, terrible moment, he expects to sink. The smells of mud, rot, and human waste bubble up. It’s not real. He shakes his head furiously, hands flat on the surface of the writing desk.

“Jealous,” he echoes.

A grunt. Shuu sits back down. Grips the arms of the chair. Kanae hasn’t looked up from his hands. He’s gripping them together. It must hurt.

“Not of them,” he says to his hands, to the missing fingers. “No. They’re good together. She’s nice but strong, and Mairo needs someone like that. They’ll have strong children.”

Shuu unfists his right hand from the arm of the chair. He reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose. His eyes throb. He really does need to get his eyes checked.

“Mairo did mention children.”

Silence. Shuu presses his knuckles over his right eye. Kanae breathes out. Not quite a sigh nor a sob but audible and pained.

“Children…”

Kanae closes his eyes. His head drops back against the chair. It makes a soft, hollow sound on the cushion.

They don’t talk for hours after that. Shuu doesn’t trust himself on the stairs, so Kanae goes down to pick up his bedding without being asked. The floor is hard with only a thin rug, but it’s not unpleasant. Kanae returns to the armchair for a time after Shuu lies down on the floor, but they eventually end up together on the floor. Shuu beneath the blanket, Kanae on top. They share the pillow, staring up at the cracked ceiling as the sun begins to light the sky.

Kanae breaks the silence as the birds begin to sing.

“If…”

He has to stop. Clear his throat. Shuu rolls onto his side. Kanae continues staring at the ceiling. Unblinking. Unseeing. It makes him seem very small.

“Do you think,” and even his voice is small, stilted, terribly faraway, “you could have loved me?”

Shuu’s stomach twists. He shifts his legs. Folding them and drawing them high up. He can’t quite make foetal position anymore, but it’s close. Next to him, Kanae turns over. They face each other, barely a breath apart. They search each other’s faces. So similar and familiar.

Mirumo’s voice bubbles up. The memory of Hogmanay. Things Shuu will never forget.

“We were,” and it hurts; it hurts a lot; “to be matched.”

Kanae smiles. He reaches up. Brushes his left thumb against Shuu’s lower lip. It’s callused and warm.

“But that doesn’t mean you would have loved me.”

That’s true. He can’t deny it. Shuu has realised in the past few weeks that he’s not the type of person who loves people back. He loves, but returning someone else’s feelings is something else altogether. Kanae touches his cheek. Fore and middle fingers. The empty knuckles hover. Just missing Shuu’s chin. 

“I think,” Kanae whispers, and it’s something they both know they’ll take to their graves, “I would have loved you either way.”

They rest their foreheads against each other. The carpet is musty, and the blanket and pillow smell faintly of rosewater. Kanae’s breath is slightly sour and the scent of cigarettes lingers on his clothing. Lately, especially after arriving in London where the air is nowhere near as clean as back on Bute, Shuu hasn’t felt like smoking. Kanae takes his cigarettes alone in the garden or, presumably, when he goes to visit Mairo. 

Shuu breathes out.

“Did you want to?”

Kanae blinks, slow and tired.

“To be your wife,” he murmurs, and he smiles a little; it is such an obvious hurt. “There are things that I thought—well, I was so young when my family died. I don’t know, really, how else to live. And I am not unhappy. Like this. But… Perhaps. I think I would have loved you as my husband.” 

Abruptly, he laughs. His eyes crinkle. Squint. There’s water in them, but it doesn’t escape.

“I know it would be a lavender marriage, but I think I could have stood that, especially—”

Kanae closes his eyes. Breathes out. In. It’s steady. Sure.

“If there had been children, what we were to each other wouldn’t have mattered. You are loving. We…” 

He trails off. Shuu reaches up. Tucks his hand under Kanae’s cheek. Kanae blinks. Shuu can feel the motion against his skin. His jaw moves. Lips part.

“Maybe,” he whispers, soft and faint and so, so sweet, “if things had been like that, we could have been happy.”

They curl into each other, Kanae’s head tucked against Shuu’s chest beneath his chin. They hold each other as best they can, listening to their own breathing. Slow and steady to match strong hearts.

They remain like that until morning. 

 

Shuu completes his letter to Kaneki early in the day before leaving for Paris. He sets it with the rest of the outgoing mail that Kanae will take to post with his morning walk. It has been quiet for the past two days since Mairo and Doaks’ visit. Matsumae hasn’t looked him fully in the eye, and things are calm but raw between him and Kanae. Shuu still hasn’t figured out how to communicate what has happened them let alone to his father. 

There is so much he wants to say, but he doesn’t know how to say it. The letter is a prime example of that.

    Dear Mister Ken Kaneki,

    I hope this letter finds you well. I am in good health, although the weather is uninspiring as usual.

    I used to think that all stories started with grand phrases like ‘once upon a time’ or ‘in a land far away’. Did you like those kinds of stories? I still do, but I find that recently I read them differently, which makes my translation project difficult. I need to finish it by next month, so I must be more efficient. I am not very quick on my feet of late.

    We spoke about how you had given Mister Nagachika _Walden_ , which neither of us are particularly interested in. I find it naïve and boring. I do not think Mister Nagachika is either of those qualities (rather the opposite), but people who believe that life can be solved by following that book’s example miss its point. I do not think Thoreau’s lifestyle was ever meant to be taken seriously. Many things are taken very seriously these days. 

    I look forward to your next letter in Paris. I hope that you and yours are well. 

    Yours truly,  
Shuu Tsukiyama
    
  
  
  
  



	11. Interlude: March 1918

Excerpt from _Lucky Together: Memoirs of a Thousand Yards on the Western Front_ by M.I. Yuma (c.1879-1948), published posthumously in 1993

 

The original plan for the Lieutenant’s twenty-fourth birthday was to get him a woman.

In hindsight, this was a terrible idea. The Lieutenant was an aristocrat. Even with the whole platoon contributing, we could barely afford a lady of the night, let alone a high society courtesan. We wouldn’t have known where to find a courtesan in the first place. I’m fairly sure most of the men wouldn’t have known what such a lady looked like.

More importantly, the Lieutenant was a romantic. He never went out to the brothels, and he spoke of the girl he’d had an awkward courtship with in his university days with a mixture of contriteness and discomfort. It wasn’t that he was a prude: he laughed just as uproariously as the rest of us at a good, bawdy tune. When he first took his command, he chatted with girls in town, his great ability with French endearing him to them at an enviable speed. He never went to bed with any of them, instead returning from their houses with fresh bread, milk, and the terrible smelly local cheeses.

“Maybe he’s the type who likes food more than sex,” Mairo reasoned after the third time this happened.

“Maybe he’s just really fast,” I shot back, and we had a good laugh.

After the Lieutenant’s gassing, though, he only watched the beautiful girls from afar, if he looked away from his papers or sword at all. Often, the girls asked us about him because of his habit of walking through town with his nose in a book. To the girls, he was a mysterious, melancholy figure unlike anyone they had ever met. They couldn’t get enough of him, especially after someone let slip he was an aristocrat. This annoyed most of the men, who wanted the girls to pay attention to them. Mairo and I didn’t joke about it. The Lieutenant remained utterly oblivious.

He preferred his books to people. He wasn’t a misanthrope, but he was never comfortable with people in the same way as he was with his intellectual pursuits. The gas stole from him the confidence he once had with his physicality. Without that, he blossomed.

What had happened in Ginchy was not a fluke.

The Lieutenant was an aggressive man by nature, and it was his mind that was his greatest weapon. He could be sentimental and idealistic, and he was generous and loving when he wanted to be. But when the circumstances called for it, he put these things aside. There was a strength to his character that I have never encountered in anyone else. In the years that followed, people came to call that strength a great many things.

I, as well as Mairo, admired it.

Perhaps that is why we were both so desperate to get a good gift for the Lieutenant’s twenty-fourth. It was not common for us men to get our commanding officers gifts, but the Lieutenant was special. Despite his obtuseness, there were several distinctive benefits to being under the Lieutenant’s command.

The most valuable was the Lieutenant’s excellent command of languages. This was the primary quality that made him valuable to higher-ups, a good many of whom were not nearly as competent in French or German as they should have been. He was, more importantly, happy to translate anything we asked of him, including how to invite girls in Paris to drink. He got endless amusement from our abysmal butchering of that beautiful language, but he never laughed at us before we were laughing at ourselves.

He used to laugh a lot. He had an easy, bright personality when I first met him. It was muddled by his station and all that comes with it, but he wasn’t conscious of it. After his gassing, he became far more aware of himself. He didn’t lose that brightness, but it didn’t come easily.

I got to, I realise now, watch the Lieutenant grow up. It was not a pleasant change, but it could not be helped. He had to grow, or he would have died. I would have died. I was well an adult by the time the war came, but it wasn’t like anything before. I was too old to change. I had no more room to grow. If it hadn’t been for the Lieutenant, I wouldn’t have survived.

That was why getting the Lieutenant a gift for his twenty-fourth was so important. A woman was the obvious conclusion we came to until we told the Lieutenant’s cousin.

“Are you stupid?” Kanae asked, squinting at us and showing his teeth; it was a strangely familiar expression at that point. “The Lieutenant can’t have a whore.”

Kanae was different from the Lieutenant in the way that a biscuit is different from an olive. He was grouchy where the Lieutenant was pleasant. He was small and unassuming where the Lieutenant was tall and charming. He had a heavy blended Scottish accent that badly masked his native German. The Lieutenant only sounded faintly Glaswegian, and only when he wasn’t paying attention to himself, which was rare. If the Lieutenant had not introduced Kanae as his cousin, the physical resemblance would have simply been easy to write off as coincidence.

I would have, if not for that introduction, hated the grouchy little blighter just as I had hated the Lieutenant on first impression. Instead, knowing that the Lieutenant considered Kanae a “dear cousin” rather than a nuisance endeared him to me. I was inclined to see Kanae’s good qualities, which he had in droves beneath a thorny demeanour. 

“Well,” Mairo said, shaking the dirty bit of fabric we had the collected money in, “we’ve already collected the money—”

“That wouldn’t afford a trollop, let alone a professional whore,” Kanae shot back, not even bothering to look at the amount.

Mairo looked down at the money. It was true. There were women would take less than what we had, but that wasn’t what we had in mind. Kanae sniffed angrily, shifting his heels in the dirt.

“You probably have enough to get a book,” he said through his teeth; he studiously didn’t make eye contact. “Of _that_ sort.”

We were able, after about two weeks of asking around, to find a little book off the library truck that came through just in time on the second of March. It was tucked away behind all the Bibles and the moralising stories that these trucks had a great surplus of, and we used the money to pay off the missionary who vehemently denied the book’s origins there. It gave us all a good laugh, especially once I had a good look at it and found that there were some pictures to go with the raunchy poems. Nothing terribly uncouth, but pictures all the same.

My laughter nearly spoiled the surprise, because the Lieutenant happened by as Mairo and I discussed my discovery the book. We quickly stood at attention, the book thankfully already put down and out of sight in Kanae’s bag a few minutes earlier. Still, our laughter had gained a curious look from the Lieutenant.

“Nice weather we’re having,” I said.

Corporal Donaldson, who was sitting behind me, kicked my heel. The Lieutenant blinked. He looked up at the heavy clouds that very obviously threatened rain.

“I think,” the Lieutenant said, contemplating but almost airy as was his habit, “it’s more like a ram.”

As was also his habit, he offered no further explanation. Seemingly having decided we were simply playing around, he promptly wandered off, leaving me to puzzle over this new non sequitur until late afternoon when Kanae returned from errands.

“Oh,” he said when I repeated the Lieutenant’s words, “he was probably talking about the weather. You know, this being lion weather.”

March had very much entered like a lion. It followed a miserably damp February. I had gotten leave in January, but that hadn’t been much better. The damp had gotten into everything, but it was particularly awful in our socks. Kanae was in the process of patching a pair that had seen far better days. He did these small sewing repairs for a small fee and made quite the tidy profit from it.

“I doubt it’ll go out like a lamb.”

Kanae smiled. His smiles were strange things: always a little lopsided in such a way that made you feel like he was secretly laughing at you. He had a different smile for the Lieutenant. Kanae, for all the years we knew each other, had a special love for his cousin that couldn’t be matched by anyone else.

“I had a look at the book,” he said, and his smile twisted, a wickedly amused thing. “He’ll love it.”

The two of us laughed merrily. Kanae slapped me with his nearly-repaired sock. I pretended to be hurt, making him throw it at me. I caught it and put it on my ear. I felt pleased. With Kanae’s approval, the Lieutenant would surely enjoy his gift.

 

We never did celebrate the Lieutenant’s twenty-fourth.

 

To this day, I don’t remember the early morning of the third of March 1918. There are many more important things that happened that day that are recorded in the history books. To tell the truth, I have never had the courage to look up what I should have been doing that morning. I don’t think Mairo or Kanae have either. It is irrelevant to what we witnessed at dawn.

We were, for some reason, on the far outskirts of the town. All three of us. We were fully dressed, and I think we had been awake for a while. I distinctly remember the taste of Kanae’s awful coffee lingering in my mouth. We weren’t talking, but it was companionable as we climbed one of the low hills that bordered this particular town. Perhaps we were going to watch the sunrise. Mairo enjoyed that very much when we were not at the Front. Sunrise on the rare dry days was lovely, if it could be seen through the clouds.

It was cloudy that day, but we had already reached the top of the hill when we realised what we had walked in on. Down below, there were a number of officers, including a rare appearance by one of the higher ranked officers, a Lieutenant-Colonel, the much-hated Major Powell, the Lieutenant, and the new chaplain, Lieutenant Amon. They were facing three figures: all privates, still identifiable as such even in such ratty uniforms, bound to stakes and blindfolded. For a moment, I didn’t comprehend what I was seeing.

Kanae swore.

We had walked in on an execution. Shot at dawn, we called it. I had heard that several deserters had been caught, brought back, and found guilty. I hadn’t heard that they had received the death sentence. I suppose, in my own way, I was still naïve. Down below, the Major was already loading his gun.

We should have left. We should have covered our eyes. We should have done anything but stand frozen at the top of that little hill, just out of the view of those below.

The first shot rang out.

The leftmost figure jerked. There was a cry, bright and shocked, before a second shot ended his misery. The Major was not known as a marksman. Next to me, Mairo made a muffled retching noise. The Major stepped three paces right. Levelled the gun.

I couldn’t shut my eyes.

The first shot missed. The second hit, but the body started jerking, so it wasn’t home. The third and fourth were fired in rapid succession. Mairo was on his knees, holding onto my left boot as he vomited in the dirt. Down below, the other officers stood. Unmoving as stone.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The Major stepped three times further right. He reached to his belt to reload his gun. There was a long pause.

I figured it out at the same time Kanae and Mairo must have.

He was out of bullets.

The Major cursed. We couldn’t hear it, but his body language was familiar to us all. He threw his gun on the ground and had a proper tantrum. The Lieutenant and the rest stayed where they were. At the stake, the last private’s blindfolded head started to jerk back and forth, a voiceless denial of the situation. I bit so hard on the fabric of my glove that it tore.

An argument ensued. The Lieutenant-Colonel finally broke away from the rest of the officers to shout at the Major, who shouted back. The shrill tone of the Major carried up to us. Kanae ground his teeth. The shouting, however, didn’t last long. A conclusion seemed to have been reached. The Lieutenant-Colonel turned to the Lieutenants, gesticulating angrily.

The other Lieutenants looked at each other. They barely moved more than their heads. I am not certain if they actually spoke, but they seemed to all come to an agreement. They shifted around.

My Lieutenant stepped forward.

“ _Nein._ ”

There is only one other time I’ve heard Kanae sound so terrified, and that was when his fingers were shot off. He took a halting step forward before he forced himself to stop. Mairo bumped into him, and I into Mairo. I hadn’t realised that we had started to move. There was no way we would get there in time. Even if we did, it is unlikely we could have changed anything.

Down below, the Lieutenant drew himself to full height. He drew his sword. Lieutenant Amon, who had been within three paces of the private still alive, stood back.

The sunrise was obscured by clouds.

I had watched, as did many others, the Lieutenant practice his sword. It was his habit every day after breakfast. I saw him draw it in battle to lead our charges. He looked noble and inspiring in those moments, even if we were covered in mud and soaked to the bone. Those were the times I’d never minded his grandiose manner of language. He used his sword with an acuity that guns never had. With his sword in hand, I understood him.

The Lieutenant would have been a king in better world.

In the stories that the Lieutenant so loved, death had meaning. There were heroes, and there were villains. There were epic battles and duels for honour and valour. When Achilles dragged Hector’s body behind on his chariot, the deed was viewed as heinous by even the gods.

The beheading was swift. No hacking. No chopping. The Lieutenant did it in one stroke, and the head bounced as it hit the ground. The blindfold came off. The body slumped forward even as it spasmed in its death throes. Blood went everywhere. Someone was screaming. Muffled. It might have been me.

No god watched that day.

The body was untied. Borne away to be buried. Disgraced. The Major cackled as it was done, while the Lieutenant-Colonel looked away. The Lieutenant cleaned his sword. His hands did not shake. He did not falter. He showed nothing as he followed the rest of the command from the execution ground. Lieutenant Amon stayed. He had vomited on his boots.

We didn’t see the Lieutenant until that evening. He came back just before the start of evening watch. He was pristine as usual. His sword hung in its usual place on his belt. He was moving with that peculiar steady slowness that meant his legs were bothering him. Kanae rose from the card table, but the Lieutenant walked past him murmuring vaguely about work.

“There is much to do,” he said, but even that was a crack; there was no mistaking the way his hands were shaking as he tried to wave them carelessly, “before morning comes.”

That night, as Kanae, Mairo, and I played cards, we listened to the Lieutenant pace upstairs. He paced for hours, occasionally interrupted by the sound of him talking to himself in Latin. It was like listening to an incantation rather than a sermon. Kanae didn’t go to him, so neither Mairo nor I could. I wanted to. I wish I had. By the next morning, the Lieutenant had worked his peculiar magic, had tied up what had happened the day before deep inside of himself. It became part of him. Like the gas. Like the war.

It would have broken a lesser man.

The Lieutenant was not a man.

The Lieutenant was absurd.

Maybe that’s why I fell in love with him.

I can admit that to myself now. Back then, it was a forbidden thought. The Lieutenant was half my age.

I realise now that what I held for him wasn’t erotic. I never thought of him in the way I thought of women. He never visited me in my dreams, and the physical attraction I felt for him wasn’t arousing. I suppose what I felt for him was romantic but chaste, strangely like what I understand of courtly love. I admired and respected him like no one else. I’d seen him at his worst and at his best. I wanted, in the end, to stay by his side.

I wasn’t alone in this love. Mairo loved him, too, much as I did. He loved this man, who we’d hated and had come to respect. If we had been women, then maybe our love could have meant something more than that. But we weren’t. It’s a silly thought, but we both had had it all the same, at least once before the end of the war.

If we had been different people, this love would have been trouble at the end of the war. We could have easily become misguided. Greedy, even, for the end of combat didn’t mean our struggles ended. Jobs were nearly impossible to come by, and we took too long to get back home from Paris to land what few openings there were. So many had died in the war. The bodies stuffed the minds and wallets of the living.

Kanae, in his own way, saved us from becoming part of the lost. He shared our love, but his was inevitably more complex. He had known the Lieutenant for years, and he had been born into a world that Mairo and I would never understand nor have access to. It made Kanae’s love painful to experience. It was inexorably far more doomed than my own.

“I think about him sometimes.”

Mairo paused, his cup halfway to his mouth. Kanae didn’t look at us. His gaze never left the Lieutenant, who was playing something I didn’t recognise on the piano, to the delight of the rest of the salon who were singing along. His eyes were shut, and he moved with the tune. I think he was singing, too, but his voice was likely so hoarse at that point I couldn’t hear it.

“The young master I served: I came to protect him.”

The Lieutenant finished the song. Opened his eyes. The crowd gathered around him. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was clear that they were attempting to badger him into another song. The Lieutenant laughed and responded, talking with his hands until he put them back on the piano keys. Another song, faster than the previous and a little surprising to hear from the Lieutenant: it sounded very American.

“But,” Kanae whispered, barely audible over the noise, “he had grown into a lord.”

At the piano, the Lieutenant was laughing. One of the girls had her arms around his shoulders. She pressed a kiss to his cheek as another girl slid to sit against their sides. For a moment, the Lieutenant seemed startled, but he covered it by laughing again. His hands never left the piano. After the three of them spoke, the girls stood up. Laughing, they went back to dancing.

A lord needs vassals. He needs loyalty. He needs respect. He needs, most of all, someone to keep his secrets.

He does not need friends. He does not need lovers.

That night, as we watched the Lieutenant at the piano, we made a pact. We agreed that night we would never speak of the Lieutenant’s twenty-fourth. The book of raunchy poems never left Kanae’s bags. Mairo and I made sure the rest of the men knew not to bring it up. We agreed among the three of us that we would never speak of what we had witnessed. Not what we knew individually, nor what we knew collectively. The Lieutenant must never know that we had witnessed what the Lieutenant-Colonel made him do. What it did to him.

And I made a promise.

For however long I live, I will protect the Lieutenant. I will keep his secrets. I will follow his and only his orders. Even this memoir: I will leave it to the Lieutenant to do with as he wishes. For I will die before him. That is the proper way of things.

Perhaps, one day, that will make a traitor. Perhaps I already am. I have made peace with this. It is absurd, but it is worth it to love the Lieutenant.

There is no greater happiness that I have known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to natsubaki for the beta.


	12. Summer 1919, Part 1

Excerpt from _The King’s Pretenders: Lord Shuu Tsukiyama’s Spies and the Second World War_ :

The relationship between Lord Shuu Tsukiyama and Ken Kaneki has been, especially in the past year, highly debated. Tsukiyama was, during his lifetime, considered a private personality in comparison to his predecessors and was primarily known for his patronage of the arts and education. His connection to Kaneki was well-known following international success of the then controversial “Flesh” portrait series of WWI and WWII veterans in which Tsukiyama’s nude portrait was included. Kaneki’s legacy as an artist has been as tumultuous and controversial as his public life. His association with Tsukiyama was the most stable source of income.

It has only been recently with the declassification of state papers that two important issues have come to light. Firstly, these papers revealed that Tsukiyama was one of the initial suppliers of personnel to the Special Operations Executive. Many of these individual had been suspected of previously spying within the British Government and abroad for Tsukiyama’s political and business interests. Secondly, one of these operatives was Ken Kaneki. He operated as part of Force 136 under the identity of Haise Sasaki, a flight mechanic. Other operatives supplied by Tsukiyama include Hideyoshi Nagachika, who went missing in Paris in 1942 and is presumed dead; Masahiro Mairo, who was killed in the Dresden fire-bombings; and Kanae Rosewald, who operated in disguise as a woman in Germany and Austria for the duration of the war. All together, there are at least fifteen unique individuals whom Tsukiyama recommended to MI5 and MI6 through the course of the Second World War.

The full extent of Tsukiyama’s network is unknown. It likely will remain so as Tsukiyama routinely destroyed his personal correspondence and did not keep personal diaries. It is telling, however, that the one set of personal correspondence that Tsukiyama did not destroy were the letters he received from Kaneki. These are also the only evidence of the ghost “Haise Sasaki” aside from the handler reports of the controversial spymaster, Arima Kishou. Kaneki and Tsukiyama’s relationship, as this chapter will examine, spanned their entire adult lives. 

 

When Shuu was in hospital recuperating from his gassing, he learned to lie.

He was questioned a great number of times concerning everything from the circumstances of his gassing to his opinions about snooker. It was exhausting. Shuu had never been interested nor skilled in snooker and he’d told the old General who had been inquiring so. It made the old man chortle, sounding like a slightly squashed whistle.

“No,” he said as Shuu blinked dumbly at him in the poor lightning of the room, “I thought not. I heard from my daughter you’re often seen about more rambunctious sports. Rugby, right?”

“Oh,” Shuu had said, suddenly terribly aware of how his legs ached; he felt very small. “Yes.”

He supposed, dully as he practiced walking in the hall that evening, that he would have to take up snooker in the future. Shuu was horrible at cards, and he couldn’t expect everyone to take up mahjong. He wasn’t certain that dueling and boxing would still be popular after the war, if indeed he survived the war. Boxing had a better chance of surviving unless everyone became so turned off violence that even that went the way of the dodo. 

Even then, Shuu knew that was a stupid thought. He also knew, because his left ankle chose to buckle right then, that he would never be able to hold his own as a boxer again.

Traveling from London to Paris, trapped for hours sitting on trains and carriages and greatly uncomfortable for it, Shuu admits to himself his time in hospital was a mixed experience. He had good care, which is why he has optimal use of his legs despite his injuries. The atmosphere, however, caused his melancholy to fester. He suspects that there is an aspect of his character that has always been prone to it. The melancholy is simply a constant hanging mood rather than a world outlook or disposition. 

He is no pessimist. He finds such people as abhorable as the cowards who came up with excuses not to fight. Conscientious objectors and pacifists irritate Shuu, but those who lied about their circumstances and flashed enough money to stay away from the war generate rare anger in Shuu like nothing else. They’re the type of people who viewed the war as silly and unnecessary but didn’t have the guts to fight for their opinions. They just wanted to save their own skin. 

“My lord,” Matsumae’s voice filters in, low and a little frightened, “is everything well?”

Shuu blinks. He’s gripping a copy of _The Daily Mail_ hard enough that it’s begun to tear down the middle. Unfortunately, looking at the tear brings his attention back to the offending article. The author, who Shuu knows from Eton and is aware spent the entirety of the war cloistered in his family’s holiday home in Switzerland, is complaining about how the war didn’t bring enough capital gains to the British Empire. 

Shuu smashes the paper into a ball and tosses it out the open window of the train car. He sits back, clenching his hands against his thighs in incandescent rage. Across from him, Matsumae looks out the window in surprise. Kanae eyes him with a mix of amusement and wariness.

“Do you want to buy out the paper?”

Only to drive it into the ground out of spite. 

“No,” Shuu grits out; he reaches for his cane. “I’m thirsty. Do you want anything from the dining car?”

Both Kanae and Matsumae shake their heads. Shuu isn’t actually thirsty. He walks down to the dining car anyways just so he doesn’t accidentally say something he’ll regret. He takes a table next to the door and looks to window after ordering a pot of hot water. The French countryside rattles by, filled with haystacks.

He sits back. Looks forward. Across the nearly empty car. A lady traveling alone sits facing him two tables down. She looks down at a soup bowl. Her fair hair is bound up to fit beneath a hat. Tears trickle down her face, curving down her cheeks to collect along her jaw. With each tiny, soundless sob, a drop falls into the bowl. The waiter, who brings Shuu’s pot and pours him a cup, studiously ignores her.

Shuu swallows. Looks down. His knuckles are pressed so hard against his thighs that it hurts. The waiter steps back and moves away. Even, sure steps. Out of the corner of his left eye, Shuu can see his cane, leaning against the table. The handle already shows a bit of wear. 

A sob echoes in the car.

Something threatens to rattle loose. Shuu shuts his eyes. Breathes out. In. He thinks of the old general. His laugh. A whistle. Squashed.

“Miserarum neque amore dare ludum neque dulci…”

 

The Paris house in the sixth arrondissement did not suffer as heavy structural damage as the Kensington house did during the war. The garden has recently been replanted, probably by Kanae’s orders, and the cosmetic repairs to the front fit in with the rest of the quiet residential street. The only issue is that one of the top floor’s windows is cracked and has not yet been replaced.

“The frame is damaged,” the new butler, Didier, explains as Shuu stands outside gazing up. “I am so sorry; we thought the contractor would be by yesterday—”

“It is quite alright,” Shuu says, looking down just in time to see Didier flinch slightly; he belatedly realises that his tone was a bit sharp. “I won’t be on the top floor too often.”

“Oh,” Didier says; his eyes flick unbidden to the cane and then hurriedly back to Shuu’s face. “Of course. My lord.”

“Captain,” Shuu says before he realises what he’s said; he feels suddenly very tired. “Captain is fine.”

“Captain?” Kanae asks as soon as they are alone together in what is to be Shuu’s room on the first floor.

Shuu sighs again. Kanae doesn’t hide any of his anger. They stand for a long moment with the bed between them. Shuu holds his dirty undershirt in hand. Kanae clenches the sides of the basin of lukewarm water for freshening up.

“So what,” he asks, moving towards the dressing table and setting the basin down with more force than necessary, “am I to be addressed as Sergeant?”

Shuu crosses the room. Picks up the wash cloth. He swishes it in the water before reaching for the soap and rubbing the two together. 

“Whatever you prefer,” he says, offering the soap bar to Kanae. 

Kanae snatches the bar from him and applies it directly to his own face. Up into his hair. His jaw is clenched, and he scrunches his eyes shut in barely controlled fury. Shuu faces the mirror and washes his own face with the cloth. He leans forward and submerges his head in the basin to get the soap into his hair. When he emerges, Kanae nudges him to the side to take handfuls of water to wash himself up. Shuu blinks water out of his eyes so that he can wipe the rest of his upper body down.

They don’t speak again until they’ve both towelled off and redressed. Kanae grinds his teeth as he brushes Shuu’s hair. The strokes are light and even. Almost soothing. 

“If you’re using your military title, then I will use mine,” he says, disapproving but calmer. “Is that what you will write the articles under?”

“I think it would be best,” Shuu says, looking away from the mirror and massaging the bridge of his nose; he really needs to get glasses. “Yuma will know what will carry the most weight, so I will ask his opinion.”

Kanae sighs. He leans over to set the brush down. He doesn’t lean completely back. For a long time, they lean on each other. Kanae’s chin against Shuu’s shoulder. Shuu’s back against Kanae’s chest. They breathe in. Out. Together.

They don’t speak for a long time.

They don’t need to.

 

Despite and because of the war, Shuu is comfortable in Paris.

He feels like he understands the city. London was damaged during the war, but Shuu spent precious little time there during it. For him, London is the city of his youthful, fanciful years when he was hearty and hale. Paris is the city that he grew up in, falling in and tumbling out after the long train rides to and from the Front. From the war. 

Summer is in full swing this late June. It’s humid and unpleasant, and it makes everything sticky with sweat even with all the windows open. The influenza is about again, although the word is that it isn’t as bad as the past year. Church bells ring in the distance, and the city slowly picks through the rubble to find if there’s anything left to put back together.

The Seine, stinking in the summer, moves along. 

The mail carrier who serves this street is a woman, which shocks Matsumae their first full day in Paris. She gazes in surprise from the hallway as Didier exchanges the post, completely unaware that Shuu is behind her on the stairwell. It’s only after Didier turns around and starts at the sight of both of them that Matsumae realises that Shuu is waiting to descend the last couple of steps. She moves quickly out the way with an apology.

“The uniform has been modified,” Shuu says, removing his hand from the bannister and taking the already hefty post parcel from Didier. 

“Yes,” Didier says as a maid, Margarette, emerges from the kitchen with her arms full of table settings. “Hopefully it won’t be necessary much longer.”

“I don’t mind it,” Shuu says as he thumbs through the correspondence; he extracts a letter with the Washuu family seal and stares at it, preemptively feeling like his brain is melting out of his ears. “Damn.”

The letter effectively ruins breakfast. Shuu chews the crust of his bread and wallows in absolute misery. He had hoped that whoever was currently in Paris from the Washuu family would put off getting in contact for a least a week so that Shuu would have time to enjoy Paris a little bit. He has Yuma scheduled for the late afternoon today, and he had hoped to be able to pick his brain for where are the most popular salons. Maybe go with him and Kanae out one night for a bit of fun. This letter puts a stopper on any plans to stay away from polite society after today.

Washuu Yoshitoki’s carte de visite falls out when Shuu finally cuts open the letter in the main study. He looks, from the picture, much the same, although there is perhaps a hint of gray at his temples. Shuu flips it over to check that they are still utilising the house in the 8th arrondissement. To his surprise, it appears that they have relocated to the 9th, very near to the Washuu’s business offices.

“I can’t imagine it’s a very large place,” Kanae comments when Shuu passes the carte de visite over.

“I wonder if Tsuneyoshi approved,” Shuu says as he unfolds the letter.

    Dear Lord Tsukiyama,

Shuu stares at the line. He blinks a couple of time before looking up. Kanae is still studying the carte de visite, but he looks up upon senses Shuu’s gaze. He raises an eyebrow.

“The announcement of our arrival stated clearly that Father isn’t with us, didn’t it?” 

Kanae blinks. “Yes?”

This is a nightmare. Shuu sits back in the chair and slumps as he returns to reading the letter.

    I am glad to hear that you have arrived safely in Paris. I hope that you are settling in well. Please let me know if you need anything here in the city. As you are well aware, there are many things still difficult to come by here.

    While your kind letter informing me of your arrival made no mention, I am sure you are here to check up on the Tsukiyama’s many business ventures now that the war is over. I would be happy to meet this Thursday to discuss our mutual interests. I apologise that my father is unable to attend, but rest assured that we are in close communication. 

    On a more personal note, I am looking forward to seeing you again. It has been many years. I had heard you had completed your degree in Classics and Latin before the war? I have not conversed on Latin in many years, and I would love to talk Virgil with you.

    Yours,  
Yoshitoki

Shuu drops the letter on the desktop. Drops head back against the chair. He slides forward until his knees meet the back of the desk. The ceiling of the study has small painted grape vines that have faded over the years. 

“Kanae,” he says, very dully, “please poison my next cup of tea.”

The expression this earns is one that Shuu can only term as constipated. He motions for Kanae to read the letter for himself and earns an eyeroll. Kanae snorts out through his nose as he picks up the paper.

“It can’t be that bad.”

Shuu stares at him. Kanae frowns and begins to read. It’s very interesting to watch the emotions go over his face. Shuu wonders if he used to be half as expressive. He wonders, too, with the kind of detachment that is not dissimilar to shock, what kind of wrinkles Kanae will have when he’s old.

If they will live to be old.

“Well,” Kanae says, drawing Shuu out of his head to a very bland look, “that was forward.”

“Is it rude,” Shuu says, not bothering to put on the effort to inflect his words as Kanae returns the letter to the desk. “May I take offense.”

Kanae wrinkles his nose. Next to them, the desk is already overflowing with correspondence and business to go through. Shuu reaches out and picks up the small collection of carte de visite that have arrived separately of the post. He sorts them. Durand. Arima. Johannes. Amon.

“Wait,” Shuu says, flipping the card over and frowning when it doesn’t have a picture, “wasn’t Amon our chaplain for a while?”

There’s a pause. Shuu looks up. Kanae’s face is flat. He doesn’t look foreboding or unhappy exactly. It’s a very strange look. They stare at each other for a long moment. Shuu doesn’t understand.

Eventually, Kanae seems to sag. He sighs through his nose. His gaze slides away. Towards the window. He isn’t seeing it. Shuu wonders, without much curiosity, what he sees. 

“A good man.”

There’s something there. Shuu waits, but Kanae doesn’t offer anything more. After a while, Shuu turns his attention to the card. It includes both Amon’s religious and military titles as well as the address of the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. Matsumae had said everyone who left cards had stated they would call again at some point during the week. 

Shuu sets the cards back on the desk top. He sits up so that he can push the chair back. Stand up. Kanae glances at him out of the corner of his eye. 

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk,” Shuu says; he feels suddenly like the house is too small. “If anyone comes calling, tell them not to leave.”

He leaves the house before anyone else can catch him, which mean he only takes his summer coat, hat, and cane. He hurries as quickly as he is able to get around the corner of the street so that Matsumae won’t be able to catch him without causing a scene. His heart hammers in his chest. He grips his cane hard as it impacts the ground with a steady thud-thud to steady his steps.

He makes it to where the residential district begins to turn into busier public streets before he allows himself to stop. He stands to the side of a bakery, pretending to wind and reset his watch to the distant church bells. 

Amon. Of all people. Amon.

Shuu returns his watch to his pocket. He moves down the street at a more sedate pace. He is aware that he shouldn’t be out much longer. The summer heat is starting to peak, and he does stand out among the general population. He makes his way to the start of the main market before turning left to begin making slow progress back.

He regrets it immediately. There’s a large crater in the road from a zeppelin bomb that he has to navigate around. The shop fronts are still empty, and there’s trash in the hole. Shuu steps gingerly as do the handful of other people. A mail courier. A couple of working women. A little boy in a school uniform, out of place at this time of day.

Shuu, with his hand curled the handle of his cane, remembers how he used to practice his sword in the summer heat.

 

The staff, Matsumae, and Kanae all keep their distance when he returns. Shuu hands his hat and coat to Didier, who stammers over _Captain_. He came with a strong recommendation from Yoshimura, but Shuu can’t help but wonder if the man is a bit young. He doesn’t seem unskilled, but his inability to handle Shuu’s moods may be a problem. Shuu sets his cane by the door instead of handing it over to also be returned to his room. It makes the most sense there.

The study has been slightly shifted into better order by Kanae, who has gone out. It is easy to guess that he has gone to the 6th arrondissement to meet up early with Yuma. Matsumae confirms this when she brings Shuu water. She lingers momentarily before she too withdraws. 

Alone at his desk, Shuu can’t help but wonder if this is what Mairo meant when he demanded change. 

Shuu swallows. Clenches his hands into fists. He presses his knuckles into his thighs and shuts his eyes. He can admit, in this moment, in this city, in this room all alone surrounded by correspondence and missives and demands:

He’s scared.

Perhaps, Shuu realises as he opens his eyes and starts to set up the desk for writing, he always was. He was never afraid of the war. Violence, brutality, even cruelty: it never frightened him. He did horrible things and saw others do even worse, and he did not flinch. The awful, bloody dirtiness of humanity never unsettled him, especially after being gassed. 

It is the mundanities of continuing to live that are the most frightening. Writing a response to Yoshitoki, preparing himself for an eventual visit from Amon, even the private, aching bemoaning that the post did not include a letter from Kaneki: they are so mundane and all the more terrifying for it. This is why Shuu cannot stand those who shirked their mandatory service. Who lied and lived on, far and sheltered from the realities of human cruelty. They are the epitome of the mundane.

Shuu would rather take his sword upon himself than live in such ignorance.

He swallows a mouthful of water. Inks his pen. He rubs his left eye, takes a deep breath, and writes.

    Dear Lord Yoshitoki Washuu,

    Thank you for your letter, which I received this morning. I am pleased that you have thought of me in this very busy season. We are settling in well. I am happy to be back in Paris as I much enjoy the city. 

    I apologise that I am not available on Thursday as there is prior business with Mister Yoshimura, and I cannot predict how much of the day it will take to sort out. I am happy to arrange another date and time to suit both of our schedules. I recommend Tuesday or Saturday mornings.

    You are correct that I completed my degree before my service. I have recently been working on a translation of Virgil’s _Georgrics_ , and I hope to do more in the future. I have been considering Horace. The meter of his odes is complicated and does not translate well. I am rarely satisfied with my efforts.

    Yours,  
Shuu


End file.
